


Animorphs TL2 - #01:  The Mulligan

by Skribs



Series: Animorphs Alternate Timeline [1]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Animals, F/M, Gen, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-03 00:50:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 70,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13329984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skribs/pseuds/Skribs
Summary: This is an alternate-timeline reboot of K.A. Applegate’s Animorphs series; similar to how Star Trek (2009) was an in-universe reboot.  The timeline has been reset, and the rules have been changed.  The Animorphs in this timeline fit the same archetypes as the original, but are not the same characters.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

I’m going to tell you my name is Jake. It isn’t. Well, it might be. Either way, whatever name I wanted to give you, I can’t. I’ve been told to give you this name: Jake. I’m told it will make more sense to you that way. I’ve read the other books. The books of the timeline before ours.

I think you’ve read them, too. The ones about the kids that could turn into animals in order to fight brain-controlling slugs? If you haven’t read them, you should. Their story finished. Ours…may not.

In any case, I was told to write this for you. You may notice that none of the things I talk about are happening on your local news. That’s because this story doesn’t take place in your world. It doesn’t take place in their world, either. The ones before.

This story is for you, not to try and recruit you to our cause, or to tell you what cities to run away from. This story isn’t to tell you who to watch out for, or if your neighbors are your enemies. This story isn’t any of that, because I don’t know much about your world. The details will be different. The players will be different, for the most part. The only thing I know about your world is this: it’s next.

 

My name is Jake. I’d like to start off with a cliché like, “it was a dark and stormy night”, or even “it was an ordinary night,” but it wasn’t either of those. It was dark, but clear. It was ordinary for most people, but for me it was a night to go pick up my cousin at the airport. That’s something I do every few months, but not often enough for me to call this Friday night “ordinary.”

“You okay, honey?” Cassie asked.

“Sorry, lost in thought,” I replied.

“Worried about saying the wrong thing to Rachel?” Cassie had a way about her, where it seemed like she knew what people were thinking. It worked real well on me.  
I took my eyes off the road for just a second to take a quick glance into her big, brown eyes. “Yeah, when she loses a fight, she gets all pissy. It was the same when she got a silver medal as a kid. I’d always say something to try and cheer her up, and it would always set her off. Like she’s a bomb where the red and blue wires are both the wrong one.”

“Have you ever tried just shutting up?” She asked. I laughed. I hadn’t actually considered that one.

“No, hon, I haven’t. Maybe I’ll try that this time.”

“Of course, if you do all the talking, she won’t go off on me,” Cassie mused. I let out a bit of a grin. I’d known Cassie almost as long as I’d known Rachel, and I don’t think I’d ever seen Rachel lose it at Cassie. At me, oh hell yeah. Other kids at school? Definitely. But Cassie seems to be immune to Rachel bitchiness. Not that she’s always a bitch. Let’s just say she has a reputation of someone to tread lightly around.

I put my hand on Cassie’s thigh. Sometimes I have trouble expressing my affection for her, so I’ve been trying lately to make small gestures like this. When I was over in the shit, I had to shut myself down to survive, and even after being out for a couple years, it’s been hard turning that part of me back on. Cassie squeezed my hand. Her hands are so much smaller than mine, and softer. She’s only a couple years younger than me, but if you shook our hands, you’d guess she was quite a bit younger. Maybe it’s because she actually moisturizes.

I could see her smiling out of the corner of my eye. Not a toothy grin like she had just won the lottery, but a small, content smile, like when you finally get home at the end of a long day and can just relax. We drove in silence for a while, and just enjoyed being with each other. I was just about to take the off-ramp to the airport when Cassie broke the silence, “are you practicing shutting up for Rachel? Or did you decide to start now?”

I took the exit and waited at a red light. I like the freeway, because you never have to stop. Well, in theory, anyway. I hated waiting at lights. Especially lights like this one, where there wasn’t anyone else waiting. “Who the hell are you green for! Um…I just didn’t want to spoil the moment by saying something stupid.”

“You’re learning,” Cassie teased. Her phone vibrated right under my hand. “Oh, it’s Rachel. She’s waiting for us.”

“Is that how she phrased it?” I asked.

“I don’t think I can read it the way she phrased it,” Cassie replied. She was okay with how Rachel and I talked, but she had higher standards for herself. The light turned green, and I turned into the airport’s parkway. Rachel wasn’t exactly a small girl, and it was easy to spot her blonde ponytail over the rest of the crowd.

Rachel saw us park our van in the loading zone, and came to meet us. When we went on trips as kids she packed more suitcases than an entire orchestra. Now that she flies regularly for work, and since airlines charge by the pound, she’s learned to travel light. I opened the rear door to our (Cassie’s) minivan and Rachel threw her pink backpack and small blue suitcase into the cargo area. If it wasn’t for the hydraulic hinges, I’m sure she would have slammed the door shut.

I opened the rear passenger door for Rachel, but she was too impatient for the slow, electronic motor and wrenched the door open, hopped inside, and slammed the door shut. “Where’s the Mustang?” Rachel asked.

I had left our (my) Mustang at home, because “your suitcase wouldn’t fit in the trunk and your head wouldn’t fit in the back seat.”

“So let me sit shotgun and shorty there can sit in the back,” Rachel said. Cassie wasn’t short. Well, compared to Rachel and I, she was, but she was taller than the average girl. When we’re 6’3 and 6’1, that makes Cassie’s 5’6 a bit on the small side. Even so, it didn’t matter. There was plenty of legroom in our Sienna.

“Why do you think I had him bring the minivan?” Cassie asked.

“Because I don’t get pulled over in it,” I replied.

“Don’t get pulled over as often, anyway,” Rachel teased. She buckled herself in, and I pulled out of the airport’s loading area.

“That wasn’t even my fault,” I said, for probably the millionth time. “If a speed limit sign is yellow, that’s just a suggestion.”

For the millionth time, Cassie had to remind me, “Honey, when the yellow sign says 25, the white sign says 45, and you get pulled over for going 57, it’s not because you were going faster than the yellow sign.”

“Yeah, ‘cuz, the suggestion doesn’t mean you can go however fast you want,” Rachel added.

“Rachel, shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you,” I said, as I pulled back onto the highway.

“I’d like to see you try,” she challenged.

“Try?” I asked incredulously. “Try? When I fight, I win.”

“Uh oh,” Cassie muttered next to me. I don’t know which is worse, what I said, or that it took Cassie to make me realize what I’d said, but it was too late.

“You asshole.” Rachel and I had been teasing each other before, but she wasn’t happy anymore. This wasn’t “oh, haha, you got me.” This was “oh, fuck you, Jake.”

“Look, Rachel-“ I tried to wiggle my way back out of the pile of shit I’d stepped in, but Rachel, being the wrestler she is, pinned me down in it.

“You think you can take me?” She asked. “Pull the car over, let’s find out who can really take who,” she said.

“Cass, help me out here,” I begged.

“Nuh-uh,” Cassie said. “I told you to keep your big, dumb mouth shut. Did you listen to me?”

“No,” I said.

“Well, if you didn’t like my help before, why should I bother helping you now?”

“Oh goddammit,” I groaned. “Rachel, I know you’re badass, but-“

“Just admit I’d take you in a fight,” Rachel demanded.

“Yeah, but only because your head is so thick I’d break my hands before I could knock you out,” I said.

“That’s not my thick head,” she said, “that’s your weak-ass girly hands.” Just like that, she was back to teasing me. You see, Rachel is an enigma. When I try to piss her off, she rolls her eyes and rolls with the punches. But when I make a joke I think is innocuous, it’s like a virus that turns my sweet cousin into a raging bitch-monster. Sometimes acting like an asshole will bring her back to eye-roll Rachel. Other times it digs the hole waayyyy deeper. Luckily for me, this time it worked.

I was at least smart enough not to ask Rachel about her fight, but she told us anyway. MMA fighters come from two main backgrounds – grappling and striking. I told you earlier that Rachel did wrestling in high school, but I didn’t tell you she’s got black belts in both Judo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Those are all grappling arts. Her opponent was a striker who knew how to keep her at bay.  
This was Rachel’s 7th fight in the Ultimate Women’s Fighting League. She was doing okay. This was her 3rd loss, which meant she still had a winning record. One thing about Rachel, is she never lost a match outright. She was never knocked out, and she never tapped out.

She only ever lost because her fights went the distance, and then judges ruled against her. Of course, it’s never because the other fighter had better technique, or because she was unable to finish the fight on her terms. It was always because the judges were biased, or because the referee let her opponent get away with something. After her last loss, I reminded her what she once told me, “Don’t leave it in the hands of the judges.”  
I learned real quick not to remind her again.

 

* * *

 

 

I think it was Cassie that suggested Rachel stay with us for the night. That way she wouldn’t need to worry about unpacking, and she could just relax. Cassie’s a great cook, and Rachel liked the idea of a free hot meal. Even more, she liked the idea of a bottle of vodka to drown out the loss, so we stopped by my work on the way home.

Oh, I should probably mention – I work at a grocery store. It’s not like I just have bottles of vodka sitting in my desk at work. I’m not that lucky. It was there that we ran into Tobias. That kid is…different. I don’t really know what other single word encapsulates all that is Tobias. I have never in my entire life met someone who is simultaneously as hard-working and as lazy as that kid. I’m a manager – not his manager, mind you, but a manager – and I can’t tell if he should be fired or promoted.

Let me tell you about this kid. On paper, he’s flawless. If he’s assigned bathroom duties, they’re cleaned every thirty minutes. If he’s on floor, it stays spotless, and when he faces an aisle, it is perfect. However, I’ve also seen him sweep the floors by pushing the broom on a riding cart, I’ve heard him ask a tow truck driver to help him bring the carts in from the parking lot, and I’ve seen him lay down on one of our 6-wheeled hand trucks to face the bottom shelf or to clean up a spill.

I don’t know if Tobias is an idiot or a genius. I guess what he does works, and as one of my sergeants used to say, “if it’s stupid and it works, it aint stupid.” But I also like what Hank Hill had to say, “ugh, that boy aint right.”

“Hi, Jake, Cassie,” Tobias said as we walked in. “And…hello there Jake’s friend.”

“I’m his cousin,” Rachel scolded. As if Tobias should have known that. Without a second thought, she went straight to the beer & wine aisle. More specifically, she moved all the way down to the locked case where we keep our harder liquor.

“Sorry,” Tobias yelled after her.

“Goddammit Jake, I need a key to get these,” Rachel complained.

“Tobias, can you get Jeff?” I asked. You were only allowed a key to this aisle if you were over 21. Tobias had about 4 years until he could get into the liquor cabinets.

“Yeah, fine,” he grumbled. I wasn’t sure if it was sarcastic or not. “But then you gotta give me a ride home.”

“I don’t see how you doing your job warrants me giving you extra favors,” I chided him.

“Okay, I was gonna ask for a ride home, though,” he said. “I’m off in five. My uncle was supposed to pick me up after work, but he’s…um…busy.”

“What does he do for a living again?” I asked.

“Stuff,” Tobias answered. That was the least vague answer he’s given me on the subject, and I must have asked over a hundred times. I wasn’t sure if Tobias just had no clue himself, but it always seemed to me like there was a reason he kept his uncle’s job a closely guarded secret.

“Alright, fine,” I said. I conceded the question for the time being. “Just go get the damn key.”

Rachel had grabbed an 18-pack of beer and was tapping her foot next to the cabinet, waiting for Jeff. “Jake, why do they lock this shit up?” she asked.

“So people like Tobias don’t try to steal it,” I replied, right as Tobias walked back to the aisle.

“Oh, ha ha,” he said.

Jeff unlocked the cabinet. Rachel picked a bottle of some rum she likes, and another bottle based purely on its ABV rating. She and Cassie went to the checkout stands.

“Wait, you have the minivan tonight, right?” Tobias asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “why?”

“Because I figured the ‘stang would be cramped,” he said. “Although I wouldn’t mind getting stuck there with…um…nevermind.”

I gave him a mischievous smile. “I’m not going to give you any speeches about how you better watch yourself or I’ll fuck you up. Rachel will do that for me.”

“She’ll tell me that you’ll fuck me up?” he asked.

“No, she’ll fuck you up,” I said. “And don’t twist my words around!” I knew exactly where his mind was going. It wasn’t too long ago that I was a hormone-riddled teenager.

“Okay, so we ready to go?” Tobias asked.

“Are you going to clock out first?” I asked back.

“Oh. Yeah.” Once again, I wasn’t sure if that was sincere or not. I wouldn’t put it past him to “forget” to clock out in the hopes of getting 20 hours of overtime. Like I said – I’m not sure if he’s smart or dumb, or if he should be fired or promoted. He’s…Tobias.

The four of us met back at the store’s entrance. “Wait, he’s coming with us?” Rachel asked. She didn’t seem happy.

“I just have to drop him off at his house,” I said. Rachel cracked open one of her cans of beer. With a pop and a long hiss, the foam rose up and oozed out of the small opening. Rachel jumped back a foot and leaned forward to keep the dripping can from getting her shoes wet. “Why did you do that?” I scolded her. “You know I can’t have an open can of booze in the car!”

“It won’t make it to the car,” she explained. Rachel then proceeded to chug the whole can in about three swallows, then she tossed it in the trash. For good measure, she let out a massive belch.

Tobias’ eyes widened in awe. Well, at least one eye did. The other was covered by his emo haircut. There was a flicker of a smile on his normally passive face. Before he had a chance to say anything, I jumped in, “alright, let’s go.”

If you were to look on a map at Tobias’ house, my place, and the grocery store, you would see a perfect triangle. Looking back at that night, it’s amazing I was even there. Had Rachel not had a fight, I wouldn’t have been out that night. Had Rachel not lost her fight, she wouldn’t need a drink, and I wouldn’t have seen Tobias. Had Tobias not needed a ride, I wouldn’t have been where I was.

All of this had to happen for me to be where I was. That night, of all nights, I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, because this was not an ordinary night. Sometimes I look back, and I can’t help but wonder if this was more than just a coincidence. If there was something pushing me to be there. In the end, it doesn’t matter. I was there. That is what mattered.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

“You don’t often see shooting stars and a lightning storm at the same time,” Tobias said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Look at the sky,” he explained.  I tried to keep one eye on the road, but I looked up.  Sure enough, Tobias was right.  I saw a meteor shower, and then below that a lightning storm.  Except, that wasn’t quite right.

“Lightning isn’t red and green,” Rachel said.

“And I’ve never heard of lightning on a clear night,” Cassie added.

“You’re right,” Tobias agreed.  “Lightning is either between clouds or between clouds and the ground.  There’s no clouds at all.  I can see the stars.”

“Nerd,” Rachel teased him.

“Who cares if he’s a nerd, he’s right,” I said.  My ass had been saved more than once by intel from so-called nerds, so I was willing to cut him a bit of slack.  “Besides, those lights, they look more like tracer rounds from a SAW.  Why they’re up in the sky is beyond me.”

“Oh, yeah, you were a Ranger, weren’t you?” Tobias asked.

“Mm-hmm,” I replied.  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that was an aerial battle.  Except, I do know better.   The US doesn’t use those colors of tracers in its aircraft, ours are bright yellow.  And if that meteor shower is part of it, the battle is taking place too high for any of our ships.  Plus, it’s too quiet.  I haven’t heard any sonic booms, and I don’t see any planes.”

“So…what’s going on?”  A minute ago, Tobias was enjoying the pretty lights in the sky.  Now, he seemed at least a little scared.  I didn’t really know that Tobias was capable of fear.  It’s not that he’s shown signs of bravery.  I just didn’t know he cared enough about himself to be afraid.

We were driving along a thoroughfare that connected a couple corners of our town.  The particular section of road we were on passes right by the creek and bay leading into the sound.  We could see the dancing lights in the sky clearly over the creek’s delta.  Red and green bounced back and forth, and every once in a while there was a flash of yellow and orange. 

The sky was lighting up more and more, but the meteors were slowing down.  Either the sky was brightening up enough to drown out the glimpses from space, or whatever was going on was coming closer to Earth.  I pulled the car over.  There was no point trying to drive if my eyes weren’t on the road.

“Seriously, what’s going on?” Tobias asked.

“If anyone had an answer, they’d have told you already,” Rachel snapped.

“I’ve seen a lot of shit,” I said.  “And I have no fucking clue what’s going on.”

“If those _are_ meteors, I think one’s going to hit,” Cassie said.  She was right.  One of the glimmering white lines above was growing steadily thicker.  Then, the line started to bend.  Whatever was falling from orbit was changing direction.

“I don’t think that’s just a satellite or a space-rock,” I said.

“No, those wouldn’t curve,” Tobias agreed.

“We should get back in the car,” I said.

“Why?” Cassie asked.

“Because that’s coming in our direction!” I replied.  Whatever it was, it was hot enough to glow, and it was big enough we could see it burn from as far away as we were.  And as its course steadied, it was clear that if it didn’t land on us, it would probably hit our town, or maybe crash out in the Sound.  At the very least, I wanted the option of driving away, if it was going to hit us.

“Do we have any idea what that is yet?” Rachel asked.  Before any of us could guess, the object was close enough for us to see.  It was a dome.  A perfect hemisphere.  From one end to the other, it was probably a mile across.  And it was on fire.

“Still no,” I said.  “I’ve never heard of any flying saucer this big.”

“It’s not shaped right, anyway,” Tobias agreed.  “They’re usually more tapered on the bottom, instead of completely flat.”  He was right.  Despite being round, this looked nothing like anything I’d ever seen on a History Channel UFO special.

“It’s not going to hit us unless it changes course again,” I noted.  “However, it’s going to hit close.  Probably just a few miles from here.”

“Let’s go,” Rachel said.

“I agree, let’s get out of here,” Cassie said.  “Let the authorities handle it.”

“No,” Rachel corrected her.  “I mean, let’s go see what it is.”

“It might be aliens!” Cassie argued.

“That’d be cool!” Tobias said.

“Whatever it is, we’re here, we might as well go,” I said.  I didn’t say it as if I was adding to the debate.  I said it with authority.   My mind was made up.  I’d made a command decision to go, and I started the car going the direction I expected the craft to land…I mean: crash.  “I’m a veteran, Cassie’s a veterinarian.  So if they’re evil aliens, I can deal with them.  If they’re good aliens, between the fire and the crash, they’re probably going to need help.”

“You’re right,” Cassie agreed.  She hadn’t seen me like this much.  I tried to keep Action Jake away from her.  Action Jake kept the country safe, so that Cassie could have Husband Jake.  But today, Cassie needed Action Jake.  At least, that’s what I told myself.  I don’t know if she’d agree.

After leaving the creek, the road cut through a forest to get to the other side of town.  We lost the trail of fire in the sky, but I have a pretty good sense of direction.  I may or may not have had to track a crashed helicopter or two through some pretty hostile, unknown territory.  It wasn’t that hard to track a mile-wide saucer through my hometown. 

I’ve heard planes crash before.  I’ve heard tanks burst through walls.  I’ve heard all manner of explosions in training and in the field.  Those were firecrackers next to what I heard next.  The car crash I was in a few years ago?  Just a snap-it.  The train I may or may not have derailed in a country I may or may not have been in?  Just a piece of bubble-wrap.

This was a mile-wide spaceship hitting the ground less than a mile away from us.  I could hear the loud roar of metal screeching against trees and against the Earth.  The area it landed was used by the military as an artillery range, so the dome saucer definitely hit a few unexploded mortar rounds as well.  I don’t know whether to describe it as a shriek, a roar, an explosion, or what.  I’d never heard a sound like that before, and I don’t think I ever will again.  Even if I could describe it, I’m not sure you’d have any frame of reference.

It’s like if you were to explain Star Wars to someone living hundreds of years ago.  How do you describe lasers, robots, spaceships, and holograms to someone from that time?  How do you describe what a TV is, what a movie is, or what special effects are?  That’s what it’s like for me right now, trying to explain that sound.  I’m trying not to make a pun here, but the sound of that alien ship crashing was unearthly.

I didn’t bother asking if everyone was alright.  It’s not like I would have been able to hear them.  Heck, they wouldn’t be able to hear me.  I took my eyes off the road real quick and looked around the van.  Cassie was holding her ears.  I could see blood dripping down past her palms, and tears down her cheeks.  Rachel was just pissed off.  She must have been running on pure adrenaline.  Hell, I know I was.  I couldn’t really see Tobias from where I was sitting, but I’m sure he wasn’t doing too much better.

Husband Jake would have tried to hold Cassie’s hand to let her know it would be okay.  But, Husband Jake wasn’t here right now.  Action Jake was.  And now that the thing had crashed, Action Jake was needed more than ever.

I got as close as I could.  My ears weren’t quite bleeding, but my head was throbbing.  My ears were already calloused from years of automatic rifle fire and heavier ordinance.  I’m not sure if the crickets had stopped chirping, or if I just couldn’t hear them, but as far as I was aware, I was moving into a forest that was bereft of light and sound. 

Before I went too far in, I made sure that Cassie and the others were following me.  If Tobias could hear me, I’d have tried to tell him to stay in the van, but I’m not even sure he’d have listened anyway.  Cassie held my hand.  Once again, Husband Jake should have given her hand a small, reassuring squeeze, but Action Jake was there instead, and he’s an asshole.

Rachel and Tobias were close together, but a few yards behind Cassie and I.  The trees were dense, but it wasn’t long until we saw the faint glow of a fire in front of us.  The forest was pretty damp, so I wasn’t too worried about the fire spreading, but if the flames were hot enough, it might dry out the area around it enough to be a problem.  Luckily, that would soon be a non-issue.

I heard a ripple of explosions, like a rack of firecrackers going off, only if each firecracker was a half-stick of dynamite.  The glow disappeared.  The craft hadn’t exploded.  I could only guess it was a self-destruct sequence; an implosion.  The alien was covering his tracks.

I saw the blast before I felt it.  Leaves and debris flew towards us like a big wall of blast wave.  I threw Cassie to the ground and covered her with my body.  Most of the leaves bounced harmlessly off me, but a few of the sharper ones sliced through the skin on my neck and hands.  Twigs scraped against me, and some bigger pieces gave me some lumps, but overall I was okay.

I was looking back the way we came.  I only saw one shape in the dark, but it was bigger than Rachel or Tobias.  The shape split in two as one of them stood up.  One with shoulder-length hair.  Like me, Rachel had covered the person next to her.  “You okay?” I asked.  Obviously, my hearing was returning.

“A little scraped up, maybe,” Rachel said.  “Nothing that couldn’t have happened in a fight.”

“I’m fine,” Cassie said.

“Me, too,” Tobias added.

“Good, let’s keep going,” I urged.  Based on how long it took the blast to reach us, I guessed we were only a few hundred feet away from the crashed ship.  Had I been a teenager, I probably would have been scared witless, but I’d gone into the unknown before.  This was a bit more unknown than I was used to, but I wasn’t completely out of my element.  I could only imagine what the others were feeling.

Cassie probably assumed that whatever alien was in there is benevolent, and was hoping it was safe.  Rachel, I’m guessing, thought whatever was coming for us was going to come out of the spaceship swinging, and she’d do her best Will Smith “welcome to Earth” impression by slugging it into next week.  Unless, of course, she was scared shitless, in which case…well, probably the same thing.  Tobias…I have no idea.  He might want to use their technology to make his life even easier, or he might just hope they are an all-female race with six breasts.  After all, he’s a teenager, and a strange one at that.

As to myself, as we approached the ship, my thoughts were purely functional.  I was going over in my mind what we would do if the aliens were good or bad, if they were hurt or healthy, if there was only one or if there were a lot of them.  I didn’t want to walk into the jaws of some carnivorous beast from Neptune, but I also didn’t want to start a war with an alien race because of fear or misunderstanding.  Trust me, starting a war is easier than you think.

“We’re not the only ones here,” Tobias said.  I was impressed.  He heard the twigs snapping before anyone else did.  He noticed what even I didn’t notice.  There were another couple of people off in the distance, a guy and a girl.  No, that’s not right.  Two guys, one with long hair.

“Be careful,” I said.  I wanted to yell and whisper at the same time, so it came out as a stage whisper of sorts.  Or a hushed scream.

“Good idea, I wish I’d thought of that,” one guy said.  He had the slightest hint of a Hispanic accent.

“Shut up, Marco,” the other guy hissed.  Marco was the long-haired guy.  I didn’t get the other guy’s name that night.  The second guy was leading the way for those two.  Marco flipped him the bird behind his back.

The four of us fell in line behind them.  We were in a sort of wedge formation, with Marco on the guy’s left, and the other four of us a few yards back on the right.  My eyes were starting to adjust to the dark.  The better we could see, the more we picked up the pace.  Everyone was curious to what was going on, but the guy leading us seemed more anxious than the rest of us.

It didn’t take long for us to reach the crash site.  Before I knew it, the evergreen roof over our heads disappeared.  We were still weaving through tree trunks, but the branches above them had been completely torn off.  A little ways further, and we reached the crater.  Like the ship, it was a mile wide, and it was several hundred feet long.  The crater was shaped like a crescent moon, from where the craft first dug into the ground until where what was left of it rested. 

I glanced up at the sky.  The meteor shower was over, and the lightshow was slowing down.  The battle overhead was nearly over.  Not knowing the players, I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.  Was it bad aliens vs. good aliens?  If so, I hope the good aliens won.  Once again, I wondered what awaited us at the remains of the ship.  Was there anything left in there?

Before we got a chance to move into the crater, a creature leapt out of it.   I’m sure you know what a centaur is, but on the assumption you skipped Greek Mythology, it’s a horse, but where the horse’s head would be, you instead have a human torso.  Well, this was a centaur.  Right in front of us, an honest-to-God centaur. 

Once again, as my eyes focused, I noticed more details.  Like how the horns on top of his head were not horns, but more like thin tentacles with eyes on the end.  Or how he had no mouth.  I scanned him from top to bottom.  His arms were rather thin, but his horse’s body was nice and strong.  It was his tail that struck me.  The tail resembled a scorpion’s tail more than a horse’s tail.  It was arched up over his back.  If it was straight, it would have been at least twice as long as his body, and it had a scythe on the end of it.  The scythe rested right over a saddle-backpack hybrid thing, which was so full I could see alien contraptions sticking out of various openings and pouches.

“Andalite filth,” the guy in front of us growled.  Before I could ask what an Andalite was, two things happened.  The guy in front of me drew his snub-nose revolver, and the alien creature in front of us flicked his tail forward with the speed and accuracy of a chameleon’s tongue, and impaled the man in the left side of the face with his tail blade. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

The man instantly went limp.  The gun fell to the ground, but his body stayed up.  He was a bunch of dead weight at the end of the Andalite’s reach, but the Andalite held up his body with ease.  I could see an inch or two of the brain-and-blood covered tip protruding out from his other ear.  Then, with another flick of his tail, the blade was out, and back into striking position.

I immediately drew my Caracal pistol from its holster on my hip.  Rachel had just got off a plane, so she didn’t have any weapons on her, but she balled up her fists and got into a boxing stance.  Cassie was a bit slower on the draw, but got her Kahr 380 out just the same.

The alien was staring at me, but his stalk eyes were darting back and forth.  As the biggest human left standing, he probably considered me the biggest threat, but he was worried about all of us.  <Yeerk scum.> 

To say I heard a voice in my head would be putting it mildly.  The words themselves were alien, but I could understand them.  I’m not sure if I could see them or hear them.  Humans aren’t telepathic, so maybe that’s just how my brain interpreted what it was receiving.  The voice in my head obviously came from the bladed centaur, but I only knew that because I could see him.  The voice was _inside_ my head. 

You know how you can read faster than you can speak?  Well, that’s how this was.  It was like a near instantaneous message.  The words “Yeerk scum” were accented by a wave of emotion.  Rage.  Hatred.  Fear.  Resolve.  This alien thought we were Yeerks (whatever those were), and it hated Yeerks. 

I didn’t want to jump to conclusions.  Marco’s friend had drawn first.  He also seemed to recognize the alien.  The Andalite was probably just defending itself.  Although, the hatred between the two seemed to run both ways, so it’s more likely they were at war.

“What the fuck?” Marco asked.  He didn’t know what was going on, which made me even more confused.  It seems he was dragged out here, much like how Cassie and Rachel were. 

“Telepathy, that’s cool,” Tobias stated.

“We’re not Yeerks.”  Cassie seemed to be the only person capable of making a pertinent statement.  “We don’t know you, and we mean you no harm.”

<Yeerk lies,> the voice said again, but once again emotions came with the words.  This time, the emotions betrayed him.   Fear.  Confusion.  The dead body in front of us had called him an Andalite, and knew what he was.  The rest of us were in shock.  The man lying in the dirt had drawn first.  We only drew our weapons when blood was drawn. 

“We don’t know what’s going on,” I said.  “Why don’t we calm down and talk.  I don’t think anyone else needs to die here.  My name is Jake.  I only have my gun out because I just watched you kill a man, but that might have been self defense.  If we put our guns away, can we talk without worrying about that tail of yours?”

“Is that a good idea?” Rachel asked.  “I bet you can pull the trigger faster than he can slice you, but if you put your gun away, I bet he can gut you before you can react.”

“He knows,” Cassie said, as if Rachel should have known what I was thinking.  “I’d rather talk than fight.”

“Can we trust you?” I asked again.

<I won’t promise anything.  But if you put your guns down, I’ll have one less reason to defend myself.>  

I let out a deep frustrated sigh; somewhere between a sigh and a growl.  “Alright, Cass, let’s try it.”  I put my gun away first.  After a second of hesitation, Cassie did as well.  Cassie only carried because I asked her to.  She’s non-violent by nature, but she understands that just because she’s non-violent, it doesn’t mean everyone else is.  She didn’t want to hurt the alien in front of us, but after witnessing what he did to Marco’s friend, Cassie was undoubtedly worried about self-preservation.

“I’m Jake,” I reiterated.  “Who are you?”

“ _What_ are you?” Marco asked.

“Why are you here?” Tobias added.

<I am Aximili-Esggarrouth-Isthill.  I am an Andalite warrior, as this dead Yeerk told you.  I’m here because my people fight the Yeerks.>  You could literally feel the punctuation in his thoughts.  When you listen to people talk, it’s like a stream of information trickling through.  Andalite thought-speak is more like getting hit by information in waves.  Bursts come through at a time.

What’s more, is as surreal as it was to have his thoughts placed into my brain, is how natural the conversation was.  You know how when you send an email, the replies get connected together into a conversation?  And then the next time you send a new email, even to the same person, the replies get connected into a different conversation?  That’s what this was like.  He didn’t thought-speak <Who am I?  I am Aximili-Esggarrouth-Isthil.>  He just said his name.  And yet, I could feel what it is he was responding to.  For each answer he gave, I could sense his purpose for giving it.

“This isn’t a Yeerk, it’s a human,” Marco said.  “He and I have worked together for several-“

<This shell is human.  The thing that drove the shell, that made it call me “Andalite filth”, that is a Yeerk.  Look closely at the ground next to his wound.  Does it look as you would expect?>

Cassie and I both knelt down next to the body.  The others just looked from where they stood.  Both Cassie and I had seen head wounds before.  Cassie had seen plenty of injured animals, whereas I had seen my fair share of headshots.   I’d seen chunks of brain splattered all over the wall, covered in blood.  Science books love to point out that brain is “gray matter”, and that brains aren’t pink, but trust me; when brains are covered in blood, they’re pink.

What sat on the ground in front of us was neither gray nor pink.  It was green.  Don’t get me wrong, there were a few chunks of brain that had spilled out through the huge gash in the guy’s head, and tons of blood spilled on the ground.  But there was also a pair of what looked almost like sea slugs.

“Are those Yeerks?” I asked, pointing at the slugs.

<That _was, a_ Yeerk, > Aximili said.  He stressed both words “was” and “a”.  Before the tail blade had struck, that was a single creature. 

“So it’s a brain slug, like from Futurama,” Marco said.

<I have a universal translator chip in my brain, and I know not what you speak of.>

“It must not translate proper nouns,” Tobias mused.

<Correct.>

“It’s a television show,” Marco explained.  “The brain slugs attach to your head, and then they take control over your body and personality to further the brain slug agenda.”

<This is fictional entertainment?>

“Yeah,” Tobias answered.

<That is startlingly accurate.  The Yeerks are parasites.  They enter a host through the ear canal, and take complete control over their body.  The host is trapped, still able to see, hear, smell, think.  But they cannot do.  They cannot talk.  They cannot make their body do anything.  They are trapped in a prison inside their own mind, forced to watch the Yeerk live their life for them.  Forced to watch the Yeerk infest their friends, families, and loved ones.  Forced to watch the Yeerk do the work of the Yeerk Empire and enslave everyone they know.>

“That’s fucking horrible,” I said.  Freedom was pretty damn important to me.  I went overseas and fought for it, after all.  “To live your life a slave, that’s worse than death.”

<We Andalites agree.>  This time there was a bit of comfort in his voice, or tone, or whatever you call it.  <It’s a fate worse than death.  Only a few Andalites have ever been close to becoming a Controller.  We prefer to take our own life than to be taken.>  Those were the words he spoke, but I got much more from them.  He didn’t tell us what a Controller was, but I could tell that was the word for someone under control of a Yeerk.  It wasn’t a guess.  It wasn’t an inference based on context.  I _knew_ that’s what he meant.

“Prefer?” Tobias asked.  I had picked up on the same thing.  He didn’t say they always take their own life.  He said it was a preference.

<We came to Earth with our Dome Ship.  I’m just an Aristh, so I was put into the dome while the rest of the ship went to fight the Yeerks.  We had assumed they just had a scouting party on this planet.  We were wrong.  They already have infrastructure on your planet.  They have multiple Vissers overseeing the conquest of Earth.  We did not know this.  Our scanners did not pick up the Yeerk Pool Ship until it was too late.>

Again, I got more than just the words.  I got a sense of shame, from his people’s failure on the mission.  I understood “Aristh” to mean cadet, and “Visser” to be a high-ranking Yeerk, something like a General.  And the Pool Ship was a mothership, something that I guessed had a lot more firepower than the Dome Ship.

“That’s why you crashed,” Rachel said.  “You were outgunned.”

<I did not even have guns.  The Dome is a resting place for my people.  The rest of the ship is the battleship.  But the rest of the ship…they were outgunned.>  The shame I felt from him was replaced with sadness.  It’s not that I personally felt ashamed or sad for him, just that I could tell what he felt.  There was no pit inside of me, but I could feel his pain nonetheless.

“There’s still some left.”  Tobias pointed at the sky.  “Which ones are yours?”  We all looked up.  There was a swarm of several ships flying around each other like the electrons in an atom.  They were much lower now.  Low enough that we could see them.  One ship was shaped like a giant Christmas tree light with tiny skis or struts underneath, and a shark’s dorsal fin on top…if the dorsal fin was on backwards.

The rest of the ships looked like giant leaves or cockroaches, with stubby square wings on the back.

<That one is an Andalite fighter.  The others are Bug Fighters.>  Either the Andalite ship was more agile than the Yeerk ships, or the Andalite was a better pilot, because he was significantly outnumbered, but he wove between the other ships so fast they couldn’t get a decent shot on him.  On the Orville, they call this maneuver Hugging the Donkey.

I’m not sure if it was a trick of the light, or if it was real, but every time the Andalite ship turned, the air around it seemed to ripple, as if the ship was warping space in order to turn faster.  Any time one of the Bug Fighters seemed to have a shot lined up, he was behind another.  He was constantly shooting green energy blasts from the tip of his backwards dorsal fin.  Every single shot he fired landed on target, but it was still long going.

<The bug fighters have weak shields, but if he doesn’t follow up fast enough, they will recharge.>  The Andalite fighter had shields, too, because every once in while the bug fighters took a shot with a pair of red energy blasts, and sometimes they were lucky enough to hit.  Every blast, whether green or red, left a brilliant yellow explosion, but it didn’t seem any of the ships were taking any damage.  Aximili was right about the shields.

Aximili was also right about what would happen if the Andalite above us managed to hit the same Bug Fighter a few times in a row.  The first two hits weren’t impressive, but when the third green blast hit, the ship exploded in a massive orange fireball.  A second later we heard the blast.  It wasn’t nearly as loud as the Dome Ship crashing, but it was an impressive boom nonetheless.

“Do you know who that is?” Cassie asked.

<I cannot be sure.  I think it’s my brother, Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul.>  This time, I felt Aximili’s pride.  The term “Prince” sounded more like a military title than a royal appointment.  It sounded prestigious, like you didn’t earn Prince just for time-in-grade as a Warrior, you had to _earn_ being called a Prince.

There was another orange fireball.  Another Bug Fighter down.  <That must be Elfangor.  At this rate, he will win.  The battle grows easier with every Bug Fighter he destroys.  He’s got to win.  Oh.  Oh no.>

“What?” Rachel asked.

<The Blade Ship.>  Once again, there was more he told me than just the words.  This was a much more powerful ship.  The Blade Ship was commanded by a Visser, someone important.  It wasn’t near the dogfight going on.  The Blade Ship was on the other side of the sky.  It closed in like an Eagle swooping in on a salmon, or a Great White lunging towards a baby seal.  The Blade Ship was shaped like a giant T, as if the Bug Fighters were babies, and the Blade Ship was the grown-up version.  It was long and slender, with a rounded bulge on the nose.  The wings at the back were just as long as the fuselage.  Two Bug Fighters flew in tight formation.  It reminded me of the TIE Fighters in the trench run in the original Star Wars movie.

Compared to the Bug Fighters, the Blade Ship had bigger guns, it had more of them, and it shot faster.  The Visser aboard figured he wasn’t going to hit the tiny little Andalite Fighter that was darting all around his minions like a featherweight boxer, so he just hit the entire area around him.  The sky lit up red as hundreds of energy blasts leapt from the Blade Ship and scorched the air around the dog fight.  It was an area-of-effect attack, completely indiscriminate firepower.

It was like what we had seen before was the start of a fireworks show.  Where you see a single firework go off and explode.  Then a few seconds later another one goes off.  Each firework is its own part of the story.  This was the grand finale.  Where in 2 minutes, you see more brilliant conflagrations in the sky than you saw in the rest of the half hour show combined.

Tons of the shots just sailed through the dog fight without hitting anything.  Still, plenty hit something in the fray.  Bug fighters were hit.  The Andalite ship was hit.  I’ve seen ruthlessness before.  I’ve shot suicide bombers before they could kill my fellow soldiers, and I’d seen others succeed. 

I’d watched it happen on Game of Thrones, when Ramsay Bolton unleashed wave after wave of arrows at the Stark army, even though half of the arrows hit his own infantry.  I’d seen it the other way on Dragon Ball Z when Goku sacrificed his life to hold his evil brother in place to be skewered.

I’d seen ruthlessness before.  I’d seen ruthlessness used to win battles, or to overcome overwhelming odds.  A suicide bomber can kill dozens or even hundreds, at the cost of one person.  It’s a deplorable tactic, but from a pure numbers standpoint, it makes a sick sort of sense.  This was the opposite.  I’d later learn that a Bug Fighter was crewed by at least two people.  The Blade Ship had fired on a half dozen of his own ships, holding at least a dozen of his people, in the hopes of killing a single Andalite.  I had not seen anyone that ruthless before.

Some of the Bug Fighters exploded, while others appeared only damaged.  One still flew, but the others that weren’t completely destroyed plummeted to the ground.  The Andalite Ship was one that was still mostly in one piece, but was no longer flying.

<Elfangor.>  There was sadness in Aximili’s voice.  This time, the word lingered in my mind.  The sadness was replaced by rage, and then resolve.

<I have something for you, a gift.>  The Andalite in front of us used the dull edge of his tail blade to pull open his satchel and then reached one of his thin arms back to grab a smaller pouch.  He pulled open the drawstring on the pouch to reveal a blue sphere, about as big around as a softball.  When he grabbed the sphere to pull it out, it emitted a faint glow.

The sphere molded into a cube.  Aximili held his hand out.  The cube rested on his open palm.  <Each of you must touch one side of the cube.>  There was still resolve in his voice, but I felt another emotion with it:  guilt.  Not guilt as if he was doing something immoral, but more like he was doing something naughty.  Like reaching into a cookie jar.  He was breaking some sort of rule to do this, but he felt it was the right thing to do.

“Why?” Marco asked.  “What’s it going to do?”

<This is our latest technology.  It will give you the ability to morph, to transform your body to be like that of any creature you can acquire.  You can use it to fight the Yeerks.>  I got a bit of an idea from what he said of how to acquire and morph into something.

“Fight them?” Marco asked.  “This is your war, not mine.”

“I’m not really up for fighting, either,” Cassie said.

“Speak for yourself, softy,” Rachel said.  “I’m in.”

“Turning into animals sounds fun,” Tobias said.

“This is new technology?” I asked.  “How well does it work?”  I’d worked with plenty of new technologies in the Army.  I had reason to be skeptical.

<It’s gone through the proper testing and accreditation.>  Aximili assured me.  <But you must hurry.  The Visser is on his way.>  He was right.  The blade ship and its escort were closing in on the clearing.

“I’m in,” I said.  “You guys don’t have to be.  But I’m in.”

“I’m not,” Marco said.  “I’m not a fighter.”

“Me, neither,” Cassie agreed.

<Hurry,> Aximili urged us.  I could feel his impatience.

Tobias, Rachel, and I each put our hands on one side of the cube.  A second later, all three of us were flat on our ass.  A jolt of electricity had surged through me and blasted me back.  Aximili seemed unaffected.

“Now I’m really glad I said ‘no’,” Marco said.  My hair was too short to stand on end, but Rachel’s head looked like a plasma ball.  Tobias’ emo haircut was no longer covering his eye, and instead was sticking straight up like liberty spikes.  It was almost like a high-and-tight haircut, with a buzz around the sides and several inches left on top.  I don’t understand today’s youth.

Aximili put the cube back into the pouch.  I could see the pouch shift from a round to a squared shape.  He put the pouch back in his saddle-backpack.  Rachel and I climbed to our feet.  Tobias was a bit slow to get up.  Aximili reached out his hand and helped Tobias up.  <I’m going to give you my bag.  You need to get out of here.>  He was eerily calm as he said this.

 “Why are you giving us your bag?” Cassie said.  “Just come with us.”

<No,> Aximili argued.  <My brother’s killer is coming to me.  You must run.>  There was a whole lot packed into that.  Every emotion Yoda warned Anikan about was there.  Fear, anger, hate, rage.  He had just seen his brother shot down, but the hatred ran deeper than that.  I’d felt his vitriolic hate for Yeerks before, but again, this was deeper.

<If I escape with you, they will hunt me down and kill all of us.  If I make my stand here, they have no reason to follow you.  Please, take my bag.  Run.  Save yourselves.  Live another day to fight the Yeerks.>  He didn’t just want to avenge his brother.  He didn’t just want to fight the Visser.  He knew the Yeerks would follow him.  He knew they would hunt all six of us down.  If the Yeerks saw us together, they would probably kill us.  Or worse, make us Controllers.  Aximili wanted to fight the Yeerks that were coming for him, but he also wanted us to run. 

“I’m good with running,” Marco said.  “Come with us if you want, but this isn’t my fight.”

“I would take you in,” Cassie said, “but I’m not a soldier like Jake is.”

“I’ll stand with you against these fuckers,” Rachel said.

“No, Rachel, he’s right.  I can tell we’re not going to talk him out of it.  But we have to run.  You and I, we’ll fight another day.  We’ll figure out a way.  But not tonight.  You won’t do anything but get yourself killed, too.”

“Fine,” she grumbled.

<I appreciate your concern,> Aximili said.  <But you are not yet ready for this fight.  I must face them alone.  I will do what I can to buy you the time you need to get away.>

The five of us turned around to run back through the trees.  I heard some sniffles.  Both Cassie and Tobias were crying.  I could see tears streaming down Rachel’s face, but she wasn’t going to let herself sob.  Marco seemed unaffected by Aximili’s willingness to sacrifice himself.  Then again, so did I.  I’d cry later.  Right now, I was still Action Jake.

We were just into the tree cover when the entire forest lit up.  The blade ship hovered near the edge of the crater.  The bug fighters that were flanking it before sat higher, a few hundred feet up.  Their floodlights were so bright that the entire clearing looked like it was the middle of the day.

In the front of the blade ship, an opening appeared.  At first, it was just the faint outline of a door, but the outline grew into a thicker frame, and then in an instant there was a hole in the spaceship.  I could see a silhouette in that hole.  That silhouette told me why Aximili held so much hatred for _this_ Yeerk in particular.  That silhouette told me why he said Andalites “usually” commit seppuku instead of letting themselves become Controllers.  That silhouette was Centaur-shaped, complete with eye stalks and a bladed tail.

<Visser Three,> Aximili hissed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

“Get down,” I whispered.  It might just be the adrenaline talking, but that whisper felt way too loud.  I wasn’t sure how good of hearing Andalites had, but I hoped we wouldn’t be heard.

The other four dropped down to the prone position, our bodies mostly hidden behind piles of branches, leaves, and debris.  I peered through a screen of pine needles to watch the scene in front of me unfold.

“We should run,” Rachel quietly insisted.  “If we’re not going to stand and fight, we should run.”

“They’ll see movement,” I argued.  “Best just to wait this out.”  I didn’t expect to be here long.  I’ve hidden in the same spot for days before.  This should be over much faster.

<You know my name, but I don’t know yours,> Visser Three said.  <No matter.  You won’t need it much longer.>

<Why?  Are you going to morph into one of your terrible monsters like a coward?> Aximili asked.

<Oh why would I even bother morphing just to kill a mere child?> Visser three said.  There was laughter in his speech.  He was an arrogant sonofabitch, and he was going to enjoy cutting the Andalite in front of him down with his bare hands…or tail.

The Andalite in the Blade Ship stepped down onto solid ground.  As he approached Aximili, I could see why Visser Three called him a child.  Aximili had stood up to my shoulder, maybe as tall as Cassie.  Visser Three towered over him like even I could not.  His legs were rippled with muscles, like a thoroughbred racehorse.  His tail wasn’t much thicker than Aximili’s, but you could see the individual muscles, which you couldn’t on Aximili.  It was like looking at a 12-year-old standing next to an NFL player.

“There’s no way he wins that fight,” Rachel whispered.

“I know,” I said.  “But it’s too late to do anything about it now.”

“Why don’t you just shoot him?” Tobias asked.

Before I could answer, more figures appeared in the door of the blade ship.  These stood taller than even Visser Three’s grown-up Andalite body.  One after another, they climbed out of the ship, and formed a large ring around the alien centaurs.  Each one was at least seven feet tall, maybe more.  It was hard to tell when I was laying on the ground.

<Hork-Bajir,> Aximili explained to us.  Visser Three didn’t react.  It was a whisper, a private message only sent to the humans watching.   They looked like dinosaurs crossed with birds crossed with a porcupine.  From head to toe they looked like walking weapons.  They stood on large talons, like you would expect to see on a velociraptor in a Jurassic World movie.  They had powerfully-built arms that ended in four-fingered hands, and extremely long necks that ended in a head that seemed a bit small for their body.  The Hork-Bajir had birdlike heads with short beaks.

Where’s the porcupine?  You may ask.  Well, the Hork-Bajir were covered in blades, and I mean _covered_ in them.  Four spines from the wrist to the elbow.  A pair on each knee.  Smaller spikes all the way down their spine and along their tail, with a few bigger spikes at the end of their tail, and two or three large horns on top of their heads.  That’s not to mention that each finger and toe ended in a sharp claw as well.  Each Hork-Bajir had to have at least 50 sharp points on their body, and they were built like linebackers.  Even if they weren’t as fast as the Andalite tail was, I could just imagine how hard they’d be to fight.

Oh, and they all had rifles that looked like they were right out of an X-COM game.

“If I shoot him, those other things will come after us,” I said.  “I don’t know how fast they are, but couldn’t velociraptors run like 60 MPH?”

“That’s complete Hollywood bullshit,” Tobias corrected me.  “They could only run 30 or 40 or so.”

“Still, I don’t have enough firepower,” I whispered.  “If you can quietly do so, try and cover yourselves with leaves and shit.  We need to wait this out.”

“Cover ourselves with shit?” Marco asked.

“Not the time,” I said.  I wasn’t going to argue semantics with an army of blade demons standing in front of us.

Visser Three was moving slowly towards Aximili.  <Pathetic fool.  You dare stand against me?  I bested Andalites before I took this body.  And you think you, a child, can defeat me?>

<Yes.>  Aximili said.  The words were hollow.  Visser Three could tell.  He laughed.  It wasn’t like human laughter.  It was just a broadcasted wave of intense delight.  There was a little bit of pep to his step.  Visser Three knew he’d won the battle.

Aximili was short with Visser Three, because he was also privately downloading a whole brain dump on the rest of us.  <Morphing.  Yeerk Pool.  Dracon Beam.  Shredder.  Taxxon.  Controller.  Collaborator.  Morphing.  Andalite.  Thought Speak.  Z-Space.  Morphing.  Visser.  Kandrona.  Gedd.  Skritna.  Morphing.>

Each word was like the title to a PowerPoint slide.  Each word contained so much more information, my mind couldn’t even process it at the time.  “Morphing” was mentioned several times, though.  He wanted to make sure we knew everything about that.   Half of what he said seemed to slip right through my mind.  The rest stuck, but not all of the pieces had a firm grip on my brain.  Aximili had done his best to help us get started in the fight against the Yeerks. 

He had done what he can, but now his attention was on Visser Three, and the Andalite body the Yeerk controlled.  Aximili was trembling.  Even if he could somehow defeat Visser Three, that only left him alone against a dozen of the Hork-Bajir.   Based on how he handled Marco’s dead friend, I guessed he could take one or two of them, but not a dozen.

Aximili struck first.  At least, he tried to.  I don’t even know how Visser Three could see the attack, let alone block it, but he did.  There was a loud _CRACK_ of bone hitting bone as Visser Three deflected Aximili’s blade harmlessly away, and then quickly struck himself.  It was one smooth motion to block and counter-attack, and dark blue blood sprayed across the clearing. 

<Argh,> Aximili yelled.  It wasn’t really a word like before, but it was more of a cry than Visser’s laughter.  I didn’t feel his pain, per se, but I felt his pain.  It didn’t hurt me, but I knew what he felt.

Again, Aximili attacked.  Again, Visser Three blocked and riposted, and again blue-black blood sprayed as the Visser’s blade struck the younger Andalite’s gut.  Again, Aximili cried out in pain.

I’ve seen people sliced up before.  Unless Andalites have different blood pressures than humans do, the cuts weren’t that deep.   Visser Three was close enough, and his blade long enough that could have sliced Aximili’s humanoid torso from his horse-oid body, but he didn’t.  He was toying with the kid in front of him.

The next time Aximili tried to attack, the Visser blocked and then sliced him twice.  His tail moved in a figure eight, carving an X into Aximili’s chest.  <AargAAAGHH!>  The cry worsened at the second cut.  Action Jake wasn’t crying, but I could smell the salty tears next to me.

“Nobody cry,” I said.  “Tears are okay, but if they hear your sobs, we’re dead.”  Cassie looked at me like I was a monster, someone she didn’t know.  There’s a reason I tried to keep Action Jake away from her.  Rachel wasn’t happy with me, either, although I think it had more to do with me not letting her go into the fight.  Cassie was horrified at me, Rachel was pissed off. 

Tobias, for the first time I’d seen since I’ve known him, looked like he actually cared about something.  He wasn’t mad at me, but he was mad.  He’d just met an alien, a good alien, and then the alien was ripped away from him.  Marco was just scared shitless.  I couldn’t tell if he even cared about Aximili or not.  I didn’t know this guy, and he didn’t know me, but at the very least he thought listening to me would get him home safe tonight.

<One of my Hork-Bajir asked me to give them an Andalite pet,> Visser Three sneered.  <He’s better off in his current host than with a _Vecol_ like you. >  Even though he wasn’t trying to translate, I understood the term: _Vecol_ , cripple.  Aximili took the bait.  He lashed out in anger now, swinging his tail furiously, one blow after the other.  Once more, Visser Three deflected everything that came at him.  When he’d had enough, he intercepted the attack a little bit lower on the tail.

Rachel and I had watched the Anderson Silva vs. Chris Weidman fight where they both tried to kick each other, and Silva’s shin snapped in half.  That’s what happened here, only instead of a shin it was a tail, and instead of breaking the bone, the tail was sliced clean through. 

Aximili’s tail blade still had a lot of momentum from his attempted attack, and spun out of control towards one of the Hork-Bajir.  He didn’t get out of the way in time.  The blade stuck into the creature’s long throat, and he quickly collapsed to the ground.  The blade acted like a wall between the Hork-Bajir’s heart and head. 

Almost instantly, the blood supply to his brain was shut off, and he instantly collapsed.  Only a small amount of light green blood oozed from under the blade.  The object stuck in his neck kept him from bleeding, but he actually died faster than if he’d just had his throat cut. 

I knew this, because when I needed a stealth kill in the past, I would leave the knife in my enemy’s throat until he went limp.  Otherwise you get this gurgling sound when they try to breathe, and it makes a lot of noise.

<Ironic, that was the Yeerk that wanted your body,> Visser Three said.  He was amused.  His own subordinate had just died from collateral damage, and not only was he callous enough to not give a damn, he was amused.  I take back what I said earlier.  Visser Three wasn’t ruthless.  He was psychotic.  <You won’t even morph to heal yourself,> Visser Three mused.  <You _are_ a _Vecol_. >

<It wouldn’t do any good,> Aximili whispered to us.  <All I can morph is the Kafit bird, and he’d kill me before I could fly away.>  I got an image of a large, twelve-winged bird with a long, sharp beak.

He didn’t tell Visser Three that he could morph.  If Visser Three thought he had any value, he might be captured, and he didn’t want to be captured.  He was resigned to his fate.

<Very well, then.  I’m bored of this,> Visser three said.  There was one last quick flip of his tail, one last small spray of blood.  It took a few seconds for us to figure out what happened.  For a moment, it just looked like another cut.  But then, Aximili’s head rolled forward off his humanoid torso.  A second later, the horse’s legs twitched and buckled, and his body rolled onto its side.  Aximili was no more.

<Burn the bodies,> Visser Three ordered.  <Search the area.  Bring me any witnesses.>

The Hork Bajir aimed their energy rifles at both Aximili and at Marco’s dead friend.  _Dracon Beams_ , I thought.  One of the telepathic PowerPoint slides Aximili had sent popped into my head.  There was a quick volley of red beams, and then a slow-motion explosion as the bodies disintegrated.   Dracon Beams were designed specifically to _not_ kill instantly.  The Yeerks used the threat of a slower, more painful death as a way to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies.

The bodies sparked as they were torn apart at the sub-atomic level.  There was a loud crackling and roaring in the air, like a living fire shooting off sparks and bellowing a cry of victory.  Smoke and dust were thrown into the air.  For a brief moment, I couldn’t see any of the aliens.

“Stay perfectly still,” I whispered.  “Shallow breaths only, no sudden moves.”  Nobody else said a word.  They were following my orders.  “If they see one us, we’re all dead.”  The Hork-Bajir’s second order was to search for witnesses.  We were mostly covered in leaves, dirt, twigs, and other things.  It wasn’t quite a ghillie suit, but it was the best were going to get under the circumstances.

It wasn’t the first time I’d sat motionless while the enemy walked all around me.  Even so, it wasn’t something I was used to.  My heart was beating a mile a minute.  I slowed my breathing.  That usually helps slow my heartrate, too, but right now it didn’t seem to do a very good job. 

I could hear the crunch of twigs and branches underneath Hork-Bajir feet.  The sound of compost being kicked around as they sloshed through the damp forest around us.

I could feel the vibrations in the ground with every step the Hork-Bajir took.  Seven-foot plus of muscle and bone had to weigh at least 400 pounds.  They were not exactly subtle creatures. 

The footfalls were getting louder, and the tremors stronger.  The Hork-Bajir were getting closer to us.  I saw talons on the ground in front of me, coming closer.  I dare not move my head.  If he saw any movement, I was dead.  We would all be dead.  I prayed that the others would keep their wits enough to stay still.  If anyone panicked, it was over.

The Hork-Bajir kept moving closer and closer to me.  Not just to the group, but to _me_.  There were two more behind it.  Apparently they had split up to search the area.   _There’s only three now_ , I thought to myself.  _If I can reach back to my hip and draw before the see me, I can probably take these three out.  The others may not come all at once.  I only have nineteen rounds in here, which is probably only enough to take out five or six of the Hork-Bajir, but these three are close enough I can take a Dracon Beam.  Maybe the others can grab a couple more.  It might be enough._

I fought back the urge to be the hero.  Even if I could take out these Hork-Bajir, I still had to deal with Visser Three, and from what Aximili said, he was far more dangerous than we’d seen so far.  Even if we get him, too, there was the Blade Ship and its guns, plus whatever other Yeerk ships were in the area.  They didn’t know about us, and I wanted it to stay that way.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my back.  One of the Hork-Bajir was standing right on top of me!  I had guessed a few seconds before that they were around 400 pounds.  I just learned that was a conservative guess.  His foot crushed the twigs on top of me into my back, his three clawed toes didn’t quite break my skin, but I felt the sharp edges trying to push through my jacket to pierce my skin.  _This is it_ , I thought.  _As soon as he reacts to stepping on me, I’m going to draw my gun just like I’d planned._   But, he didn’t react.  They’d been tripping all over branches since they got into the woods, and just assumed I was another branch.

I held my hands against the ground, like I was getting ready to do a pushup.  I didn’t want him to feel the “log” he was standing on sink when I breathed out, and I didn’t want to be crushed down into the ground so hard that I couldn’t breathe in.  My face was already being pushed into the muck.  I could smell the dirt and the dew, the dead leaves and the recently-split pine.  It was a smell I knew very well.  I could taste the mud that was seeping into my mouth.  I held myself up and slowly exhaled, and then took in as deep a breath as I could take without making a sound or swelling my chest.

I took the weight off my arms.  I can’t believe I managed to hold up myself and the Hork-Bajir without trembling.  Although, I guess I was only holding half of him up, and I was incredibly high on adrenaline at the moment.  There was another one between Tobias and Rachel, and a third one on the other side of Marco.  The first Hork-Bajir stepped over me.  I flexed my diaphragm to keep him from forcing me to exhale, but as soon as he put his other foot back down, I could breathe normally again.

The one by Marco walked right by him, but the one next to Rachel stopped for a moment.  The Hork-Bajir that had just stepped on me asked him something in a language made of clicks and whistles, like a giant cockatiel.  After a second, the giant bird-like legs next to Rachel started moving again.  My Hork-Bajir squawked at the other one again.  This time, Rachel’s Hork-Bajir shouted back.  They kept arguing with each other as they walked off into the distance.

“How long do we stay here?” Tobias asked.

“Until they take off again,” Marco replied. 

“And a bit after,” I added.  “Stay quiet.”  Marco was right.  They would probably leave in their spaceships, so we should wait until then.  But even if they were in their ships, it wasn’t until the lights were shut off and they were out of sight that we would be safe to go.  It seemed to take hours for them to leave.  Which, based on past experience, if it felt like hours, it was only a few minutes.

We watched the Hork-Bajir and Andalite Controllers get back into the Blade Ship, and the Blade Ship took off.  Even though the Dome Ship was crashed and had self-destructed, Visser Three saw it fit to completely destroy it.  The Blade Ship rained fire from up high, a steady stream of Dracon fire lit up the forest once again.  Like a fireman spraying his hose, systematically sweeping side-to-side, working his way from the bottom to the top, the Blade Ship swept back and forth, and worked its way all the way along the Dome Ship.

When they were done, they passed their floodlights around the forest a couple more times.  Once they were satisfied that anything that would stand against them or expose them was dead, they lifted off back into the night sky.  “That’s why I said we wait until after they leave,” I said, as I climbed up from the prone position.

“That poor Andalite,” Cassie said.

“This sucks,” Tobias agreed.  I remember when I was his age.  I didn’t really have the vocabulary to deal with terrible shit then, either.

“It does, but we should get home,” I said.  “Rachel, you’re staying with us tonight.  Tobias, you can, too, if you want to.”

“How the hell am I going to get home?” Marco asked.

“How did you get here?” I asked back.

“His car,” Marco replied.  “His keys were probably vaporized along with his body.”

“We have a minivan,” Cassie said.  “You can come home with us tonight.  Tomorrow we’ll get you back home.”

“Or to your car, or wherever you want to go,” I said.

“No way,” Marco argued.  “No way I go with you guys.  You’re going to suck me into this war.  I just know it.”

“I’m not,” Cassie said.  “Remember, I didn’t touch the cube, either.  I’m not going to get sucked in, either.  We just need to rest, decompress, and figure it out in the morning.”

“You can come to our house, or I’m leaving your ass out here,” I said.

“Wow, asshole, you’re giving me an ultimatum?” Marco asked.

“No.  I’m tired, and I’m going home.  If you don’t want to walk home, you can come with us.  That’s an offer, and it expires when I get in my car.”

“Fine,” Marco agreed.  He threw his hands up in the air.  “Fine.  I’ll go with you.”  His timing couldn’t have been better.  We were back at the van.  If he hadn’t agreed then, I’d have done exactly what I said and left him there.

It was faster for us to swing by Tobias’ place and then come back around to mine than it was to go back the way we’d came, so I kept going down the road.  I wasn’t going to bring Tobias home.  I needed to keep an eye on the kid.  I wasn’t sure how Aximili’s death would sit with him, and he definitely needed a guiding hand if he was going to even try to join the war against the Yeerks.  I knew it had to be me that Tobias talked to in the morning.

We passed a really nice Audi just a few hundred feet from where we’d parked.  “That’s a new model,” Rachel noticed.  “Your friend must’ve been rich.”

“Mike wasn’t my friend, I just worked with him,” Marco explained.  “He was giving me a ride home.  My Mercedes is in the shop this week.”

“Who are you?” Rachel asked.

“I’m Marco,” he replied.  “I thought you knew that.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

I have a routine for the mornings.  I get up around 6.  I have a small piece of fruit and then go for a run.  I come back, have a bigger breakfast, and then go work out.  Shower, brush, a morning B.M., and then by around 9 I’m ready for whatever the day has.

Today, I didn’t even get up until 11.  I was exhausted.  We all were.  I’d blame it on getting the morphing power, but Cassie slept in, too, and she was usually up before me.  I couldn’t help but think it was all a dream until I went into the hall to use the restroom and ran into Marco.  “I guess this wasn’t a dream,” I said.

“Why are you having dreams about me?” He asked.  “Aren’t you married?”

“Maybe I was in them, too,” Cassie said coyly.  I apparently didn’t beat her up by much.

“Well I need to shit and shower,” I said.  “Let’s talk after that.”  I had taken a shower when I got home, but I needed another one.  It’s not that I felt somehow dirty and that the shower would clean my negative emotions away.  There’s just something about the isolation and the running water that helps clear your head.

I let the water run through my hair and down my face.  I didn’t mind the dirt, but I didn’t like to stay dirty.  The clean water felt good spraying over my body.  The feeling only lasted a moment.  Apparently I was the fourth person in here today, because the water suddenly turned glacier cold.  My skin tightened around itself from the sudden drop in temperature.  I finished my shower quick and got dressed.

The others were all sitting in the living room.  “My turn,” Cassie said.

“I’d give it a while,” I warned her.  “Water’s cold.”

“Sorry about that,” Tobias said. 

 _Goddamn teenagers_ , I thought.  “Well, I hate to bring up the elephant in the room, but what the fuck are we going to do about this?”

“We?” Marco asked.  “ _We_ don’t have to do anything.  I’m going to go home to my kid, try and explain to my wife where the hell I was last night, and I’m going to go about my normal life.”

“You’re pathetic,” Rachel said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.  You’re afraid of the Yeerks, you’re afraid of your wife, you’re afraid to even talk about this.  You just want to go back to your cushy little house and drive your cushy little luxury car, and bury your head in the cushy sand so you can protect your-“

“I think he gets the picture,” I said.  “Look, Marco, you seem like a smart guy.  You saw last night, we don’t know who we can trust.  Us five, we can trust each other.”

“I don’t even know you,” Marco said.  “How the hell can I trust you?”

“Aximili trusted all of us,” Tobias said.  “I don’t know you and you don’t know me.  I don’t trust most people.  Hell, I don’t even _like_ most people.  By the way, Rachel, you are _not_ most people.  Um…oh, yeah, so maybe you don’t know us.  You don’t know what we’re like, or if we’re on the level, or whatever.  But Aximili trusted us to not be Controllers.  There’s only five people in the world I know are _not_ Controllers:  us.”

“That’s exactly it,” I said.  “These guys are trying to take over our city.  You know everything Aximili told us.  You know they have to have hundreds or thousands of Controllers already, and they’ll get more and more every day unless someone stands up to them.”

“I’m not stopping you guys,” Marco said.  “I’m just not helping you either.  Cassie didn’t sign up.  Why aren’t you jumping down her throat about it?”

“She’s a captive audience,” I argued.  “I have plenty of time to convince her to help us.”

“I just don’t want to be in the front lines,” she said.  “I don’t want to take any dangerous powers.  But I plan to help.  Whatever you need, hon, within reason.”

Marco wouldn’t budge.  “I have a wife.  I have a kid.  I’m not about to risk my life and leave them high and dry.  You know how much I make.  If I’m gone, their lives will suck.  It’s not just about me, it’s about what I provide for them.  Barb is a stay-at-home Mom.  If I die, she’ll have nothing.  I have life insurance, but that doesn’t cover disappearances, which means if my body is vaporized, they’re toast too.  So, no.  No no no.  I am not going to join a war that might take food off my family’s table.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay?” Rachel asked.

“Rachel, look,” I explained.  “We used to have a draft.  We outgrew it.  We don’t need to force Marco to join us.  Marco, just do me a favor and let’s exchange numbers before you go.  If you ever need us, you can contact us.  We may need to ask some questions about Mike, too.  I’m not asking you to join the war.  I’m just asking you to keep the bridge open.  I don’t want to burn it.”

“Fine,” Marco said.  “If I do that, will you drive me home?”

“Sure,” I said.  I got up and went to find my keys.  “I’ll drive you home.  That’ll give Cassie some time to get ready.” 

“And I can hang out with Rachel,” Tobias said, perhaps a bit too eagerly.

A mischievous grin spread across my face.  “Careful, Rachel, he’s only seventeen.”

“That’s okay, sixteen’s legal in Washington,” Cassie pointed out.

I was not exactly thrilled she knew this.  Was she checking out the younger guys?  “Um…why exactly do you know that?”

“Oh, it’s not what you think.  I was sixteen once.”

“Oh,” I said.  _So she’s not checking out teenagers,_ I thought.  Then it hit me.  “Wait a minute, no.  That’s worse!” 

“It was also mentioned in the Domestic Violence class I took as an elective,” Cassie explained.  I decided not to ask her if it was from the class, or from high school, when she learned this.  Sometimes it’s best not to know what she did before we started dating senior year.

“You ready, Marco?” I asked.

He took a bit too long to respond.  He wanted to see what Rachel had to say, but she just threw up her arms in frustration and walked away.  “Yeah, sure.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you know what you’re going to say to your wife when you get home?” I asked.

“I can’t exactly tell her I watched a bunch of aliens kill each other,” Marco said.  “I watched the News before you got up.  The government’s blamed this on a meteor shower and electrical storm.  I’ll admit, that’s what I thought it was at first.”

“Me, too,” I said.  “This just tells me the Yeerks have people in both the government and in the media.”

“Exactly,” Marco said.  “If I tell Barb what really happened, she’ll have me institutionalized, and I don’t want the wrong person seeing my statement.”

“How does she feel about you going out drinking with the guys after work?” I asked.

“The one rule she has is that I have to let her know where I’ll be,” Marco explained.

“Good,” I said.  “Make it look like you tried to send a text and then trash your phone.  Problem solved.”

“Then I need to buy a new phone,” Marco argued.

“Can’t you afford it?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he admitted.  “I just wish I had a cheaper way to get out of this.”  We discussed some ideas, but couldn’t really come up with anything.

Our town is a funny town.  It looks like it was organized by someone with ADD.  One block will have run-down little bungalows and ranch houses, and then a few blocks later you’ve got million-dollar lake-side homes.  Marco had a split-level condo somewhere in between.  When we pulled up to his place, the only car in the driveway was a beat-up old Chevy Cavalier.  “That’s not Barb’s car,” Marco said.  “I think that’s…Kayla.  Our babysitter.”

We knocked on the door.  An Asian girl, about fifteen, opened the door.  “Hi, Mr. Marco,” she said.  “I’m so glad you’re here.  I was wondering how long I was going to be here today.”

“Um…hi,” Marco said.  “How long have you been here?”

“Since last night,” Kayla said.  “Ms. Barbara said she was going out with friends, and that I should plan on staying the night if I have to.”

“Okay,” Marco said.  I was starting to learn that his short sentences weren’t because he’s simple-minded.  He had told me on the ride over that he was an AI developer for a prestigious strategy game company.  You don’t get this kind of money doing that kind of job if you’re an idiot.  No.  His small sentences were to hide what was going on in that head of his. 

This is why I’d been having trouble reading him.  He keeps his thoughts to himself unless they need to be said.  Based on the rule he told me earlier, I’m pretty sure he was surprised to hear his wife had gone out.  “You can go, Kayla,” Marco finally said.

“Are you forgetting something?” Kayla asked.

“Oh, right, I’ll be right back.”  Marco disappeared into the house, leaving me standing on the porch with Kayla. 

“So, I’m Jake,” I said.  I tried not to be as awkward as the silence.  I don’t think it worked.

“Kayla,” she replied.  “Uh…are you a friend of Marco’s?”

“I guess.”  _Man, I should have brought Tobias_ , I thought.  _Give him someone his age to fawn over._   Luckily, I didn’t have stand there awkwardly for much longer. 

Marco came back out with an envelope full of cash.  “How long have you been here?”

Kayla looked at her phone, as if the time now would tell her what time it was when she got here.  “Since about 9 last night.  You know I charge $15 an hour for overnighters.”

He handed her a couple hundreds and a wad of twenties.  “I’ll give you this, and you don’t tell Barbara how late I was coming back.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” Kayla said gleefully.  She got in her car and left.

“You want to come in for a cup of coffee or something?” Marco asked.  I was surprised.  Earlier, he didn’t want anything to do with us, but now he seemed almost friendly.  “It’s the least I can do for you getting me home okay.”  He wasn’t just thanking me for the ride today.  At least, that’s what I want to think.  He was glad I helped him get home alive last night.

“Sure, I could use a cup,” I agreed.  I followed Marco inside.

There was a girl with dirty-blonde hair sitting at the TV, watching whatever passes for cartoons nowadays.  When I was raised, they still ran Looney Tunes all the time, and it was the golden age of Cartoon Network cartoons, like Dexter’s Lab and Scooby Doo.  I was still young enough to enjoy the Nickelodeon run of Spongebob and Fairly Odd Parents.  I have no idea when it all became CGI follow-along bullshit, but I guess this is the world we live in today.

“This is Angelina,” Marco said.  “Angelina, this is my friend Jake.”  Angelina didn’t even respond.  I guess those cartoons do something right.

Marco led me to the kitchen.  I was expecting a Keurig.  No.  Marco had an espresso machine that probably cost the same as my Sienna.  It had more buttons than most mixing boards, and more warning labels than most roller coasters.  “So what will you have?  I know how to make everything.”

“I think the machine knows how to make everything, and you know how to push the button with the right name on it,” I said.

“Isn’t that what I said?” Marco asked. 

“Just give me a black coffee,” I said.

“Jake, you’re killing me.  You think I got this to make _black_ coffee?”

“No, I think you got this because you don’t know how to make coffee,” I said. 

“You’d be right,” he admitted.  “Fine, one boring-ass coffee coming right up.”

“That’s a dollar!” Angelina yelled from the other room.

“Swear jar?” I asked.

“Swear jar,” he answered.

“Someone in my unit tried to put in a swear jar policy.  Half of us couldn’t pay rent that month.”

Marco laughed.  “Same thing happened at work.  One guy owed gambling debts to the mob and couldn’t pay them back.  They came and broke his legs.”

“That’s awful,” I said.

“Wasn’t too bad.  We’re programmers.  We don’t need legs.”

“This was a joke, wasn’t it?” I asked.  Marco nodded.  Like I said, the bastard’s hard to read.

“So, this game I’m working on,” Marco started off.  “It’s Starcraft 3.  You know, the game where the psychic Protoss fight the bug-like Zerg, and the Terrans are caught in the middle?  We’re working on a new one.”

“You work for Blizzard North?” I asked.  “As a developer?”

“Yeah,” he said.  “But don’t tell anyone we’re working on a new Starcraft.  It’s a secret.”  This time, I _could_ read Marco.  I don’t know if it’s true what game he was working on, but he made it clear:  psychic aliens, bugs, and humans caught in the middle?  Yes, he knew it’s a secret, and he was going to keep his mouth shut.  It was brilliant.  If he said the word “Andalite” or “Yeerk”, and Angelina repeated it to the wrong person, it would paint a target on his back.

“Don’t worry,” I said.  “But hey, you should know I play SC2.  If you ever want to join a 4-v-4 team, just let me know.”  I wasn’t trying to be pushy, but I was letting him know that the offer to join us wasn’t time-sensitive.  Not like last night.  If he changed his mind later on, we would accept him.  “And hey, even if all you want to do is talk shop, bounce some ideas off me, let me know.  If you want to talk about the cinematics, or any problems with the Zerg…”

Marco didn’t say anything.  He just nodded.  Once again, I could see the gears turning in his head.  I hoped he got my meaning.  If he noticed anything related to the Yeerks, he could call me.  If he just wanted someone to talk to, he could call me for that as well.  I continued, “I know being on the inside puts you in a small circle.   Keep that circle small.  Only trust those you know you can trust.”

He changed the subject after that.  We started talking about Starcraft.  I’d played the game, but most of what I knew about it came from watching the sports networks when I was stationed in Korea.  Half of what Marco said went over my head, but it was nice to forget about the night before, at least for a little bit.  Probably for him as well. 

When I’d finished my cup, I thanked him for the coffee and left.   I was real disappointed he wasn’t joining us.  The man was smart.  Even in the short time I spent with him, I could tell his wit was quick, but well filtered.  If he joined us, he’d be a powerful asset.  Of course, at the time, I didn’t even know what _us_ meant.  I just knew that there was an enemy I had to fight, and I had a cousin and a coworker to help me fight it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

When I got back, I was glad to see Rachel and Tobias were still at my house.  It meant they hadn’t changed their minds yet.  “You guys are still here?”

“We’re going to figure out how to fight the Yeerks, aren’t we?” Rachel asked.

“You’re also kind of my ride,” Tobias admitted.

“So what do we do, oh fearless leader?” Rachel asked.

“I…don’t know,” I admitted.

“You’re the war expert,” Rachel said.  “So expert it up in this bitch.”  She had a point.  I had been to war.  I’d been to a lot of war.  I’d done my homework and planned the types of missions we would need to fight the Yeerks.

“I always had an objective,” I explained.  “There isn’t one here other than ‘stop Yeerks.’  I don’t know where to start.”

“Aximili gave us some good points to start with,” Tobias said.  “In the end, he told us a lot about the Yeerks and Andalite strategies for fighting them.”

“You’re right,” I said.  “That came in like a big PowerPoint, and I think my brain only saved half of it.”

“So work through it together,” Cassie suggested.  “Talk it through.  Maybe we all got different pieces.  I seem to remember a lot about morphing.”

“We all do,” Rachel said.  “He said that one a lot.”

“Regardless, Cassie’s right,” I said.  “Let’s talk this out.”  We started going over Aximili’s final thoughts around three in the afternoon.  By the time we were done, it felt like only a few minutes had passed, but it was after dinner time.  Luckily for us, Cassie’s a good cook.  I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.  If I go over the whole conversation we had, it will be a very long, boring read that would take hundreds of pages and might make you more confused than you are now.  So, let me sum up.

The Yeerks are, as we already saw, a parasitic species that take control over your brain.  Their biggest weakness, aside from being particularly useless when they’re not inside someone, is that they must eat once every three days, or they die.  They live on something called Kandrona rays, which are beamed into a Yeerk Pool.  Apparently Aximili said “Kandrona” and “Yeerk Pool” and “Yeerk” to make sure we got this important detail.

Andalites are at war with the Yeerks, and have been since the Yeerks started conquering worlds.  The Andalites that were sent here were on an expedition to see if the Yeerks had any presence on Earth.  It was assumed that if they were here, the Yeerks were only here in small numbers on an exploratory mission.  However, they were already in full-on invasion mode.

We couldn’t expect any help from the Andalites for some time, for a few reasons.  First, with the Dome Ship defeated, and the other Andalites crashed and most-likely dead, there was nobody to phone home for help.  Second, the Andalite army was spread thin.  Yeerks reproduce fast, and they’re like zombies – the people they take over in conquest become more soldiers for the fire.

The other reason Andalites probably wouldn’t be here for a while is that Z-Space tends to shift around a lot.  Zero-Space, or Z-Space, is sort of like the real-world version of Hyperspace from Star Wars.  Most aliens use Z-Space for interstellar travel, as it creates doorways through regular space that can connect points tens of thousands of lightyears apart, and allow the trip to take mere days or weeks.  However, the known paths through Z-Space move around, and the door that was open near our solar system is closed.  In order for the Andalites to come to our aid, a Z-Space exit would need to either come back near our solar system, or a new exit would need to be discovered and mapped.  Either way, we were basically on our own.

There were a lot of other words Aximili had mentioned, but for the most part we didn’t really remember much about them.  The only one we really took to heart was “morphing.”  Aximili hadn’t had a chance to tell us about it properly, so he made sure the telepathic information packet he sent contained the word over and over.  He wanted us to make sure we knew how to use it, and what the risks were when doing so.

The first step to morphing was to acquire DNA.  Whatever we wanted to morph into, we had to first acquire.  That meant we needed to touch the animal and think real hard about it.  To me, it sounded like how Peter Pan needed happy thoughts in order to fly.  We shouldn’t worry about dangerous animals, because the morphing technology puts the acquiree into a sort of trance while it’s being acquired.

The second step was to actually morph.  As best we understood, there were two rules.  Rule number one:  you had to concentrate hard on the animal to morph into it.  The morphing technology would prevent us from feeling any pain as our body rearranged itself.  Rule number two:  don’t stay in morph for more than two hours, or you will get stuck permanently in that morph (and no, you can’t just use the blue orb to give you morphing powers again).

There were a few other things about morphing.  We couldn’t go from one morph into another, we’d have to go through our base form first.  We couldn’t acquire a morph while in a morph, and we couldn’t acquire a morph from someone else who was in a morph.  There were also some warnings about controlling the animal’s instincts, but we didn’t really know what that was about.

Personally, these seemed like stupid rules to me.  Tobias had agreed, and hoped that by the time the Andalites came to help us out, they had Morphing Technology v2.0 ready for us, with all of these bugs fixed.

Cassie had made a delicious homemade ravioli dinner.  The beef was perfectly seasoned, the sauce-to-parmesan ratio just right.  Everyone was digging in, when Rachel asked the same question she asked me hours ago, “So, oh fearless leader:  what do we do?”

“I’ve had a chance to mull it over, and I have some concrete objectives now,” I said.

“Let’s hear it, then,” Rachel said.

“Well, we need to find the Yeerk Pool or we need to find some Controllers.  Once we have people or a location, we can set up surveillance to get more.”

“Like how in Sudoku finding one number can help you find several others,” Tobias said.

“Exactly,” I agreed.  Not that I knew how Sudoku worked, but it sounded right.  “On our end, we need to set up shop.  We need to try out our morphing powers and see if they’ll even work with our anatomy.  We need to go over the Andalite tech that Aximili gave us before he died.  We need rules of engagement.   We need a plan on how to deal with the Yeerks.”

“That’s a lot of things,” Rachel said.

“I call dibs on testing the morphing!” Tobias volunteered.

“I’m not assigning jobs,” I said.  “We need to work together on these.  This weekend, let’s focus on what we can do, and keep our eyes open for anything suspicious.  Keep in touch with each other, but do not mention any buzz words in text messages.  Nothing like Yeerks, aliens, Andalites, morphing, or anything else that might clue us in.”

“The best idea is just to meet here at the house,” Cassie suggested.  “We can talk about hanging out here on the phone, but we need to keep our meetings off the airwaves.”

“Good idea,” Tobias said.  “Do we have any idea where to start looking for the Yeerks?”

“As of right now?” I asked.  “No.  But let’s work on what we can for now.  You two try out morphing and learn how it works.  Cassie and I can go through this Andalite stuff tomorrow and see what we got.  Let’s meet back here in a couple days and go over our rules.  I need to put both of you through some sort of basic training before we dive in headfirst.”

“I’m already in fighting shape,” Rachel argued.  “That’s time we could spend fighting.”

“And if I can morph into an animal, why do I need to be strong?” Tobias asked.

“Not that kind of training,” I explained.  “Rachel, you’ve fought one-on-one in the ring.  Tobias, you haven’t even thought before.  If we’re going to war, the three of us, it’s not going to be an honourable war where we line up rank and file and fight each other.  It’s going to be a guerilla war.  We need to talk about how that works.  We’re going to risk everything if we fight the Yeerks, and chances are we all die on our first mission.  We can’t ignore that before going in.  I can’t have it on my conscience that you ignore that before we go in.”

Tobias and Rachel nodded.  I don’t think they grasped what I was saying.  I’d seen kids only a year or two older than Tobias cut down by snipers or RPGs.  These kids thought they were invincible, because ‘Muricah, or because they have a piece of armor.  I’d lived those horrors first-hand.  These two were green.  They were willing to fight, at the moment, but they hadn’t even tasted action yet.  They hadn’t tasted defeat.

“Sounds like we have a plan,” Rachel said.  “I should get going.  Can you give me a ride home?”

I had forgotten that I was her ride from the airport…and Tobias’ ride home.  “Sure, Tobias I should get you home, too.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you sure about this?” Cassie asked.  I appreciated that she waited until we were alone to question me. 

She picked her timing well.  Action Jake was gone, and Husband Jake was back.  Action Jake gives orders, but Husband Jake takes them.  “Which part?” I asked.  “The part about going to war against aliens?  Or the part about this even happening?”

“A bit of both,” Cassie laughed.  “I mean, we have all this junk,” she pointed to the bag we’d taken home last night.  “So unless this is some collective hallucination, it’s real.  But isn’t there someone you can bring this to?  Your old unit?  The President?  A News Network?”

“I want to trust them, but I don’t know who to trust.  From what Aximili said, once the Yeerk takes you over, you have no control.  They are in charge.  And they can see your memories and personality and all that jazz, so they can act like you.  We know people in the government are compromised.  So who do we go after?”

“These Yeerks eat every three days, right?” Cassie asked.

“Yeah, because if they go four days without Kandrona, they starve.”

“So kidnap someone and starve the Yeerk out,” Cassie suggested.

“And how do you suppose I do that?” I asked.

“I can get you some veterinary tranquilizers.  You can go all Dexter Morgan on their ass.”  Cassie sounded so awkward when she tried to curse.  Like she almost couldn’t bring herself to say it, so the word gets stretched out.  Ay-assz.

“And then what?  Where do I bring their body?  If they are a Controller, won’t the Yeerks notice that they didn’t show up for their feeding?”

“Do they keep track of that?” Cassie asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.  “We probably need to go into the Yeerk Pool to find out.  Maybe we can get some stuff while we’re there.  But…that’s for another time.  I don’t think jumping into their base right off the bat is a good idea.  We need to get our feet wet, first.”

“Or your paws wet?”

“What?”

“Well, you’re going to be morphing, right?” Cassie said.  “Won’t you have cute little paws?”

“I’m not sure.  Man rules this planet because we have tools.  I’d much rather have a rifle than turn into a dog or a cockatiel.”

“You’re thinking too small!” Cassie did have a way of seeing things I couldn’t.  “I work at the _zoo_.  I have credentials that can get into other _zoos_.  I volunteer at shelters.  I can call in favors and get you pretty much any animal you want.  Don’t go in as a dog.  Go in as a lion, a tiger, or a bear.”

“Oh my!”  I joked.  “But, seriously, brilliant fucking idea.  I’m not being sarcastic.  I wasn’t even thinking of that.”

“You’ve got the entire animal kingdom out there,” Cassie added.  “If it works, anyway, you should be able to fly, to go small and sneak in somewhere.”

“Morph other people and sneak in, like Mission Impossible.”  I was getting the idea.

“Or at least to conceal your identity,” she said.

“Then the onus will be on them,” I said.  “If I morph some random John Doe, and they figure out who he is, they’ll show up at _his_ house.”

“Not if you’re a lion, tiger, or bear.”

“I guess that’s a reason to morph,” I agreed.  “But still, I’d rather have my rifle.”

“So morph a monkey, dingus!”  She had me there.  “So…did you want to go over the stuff Aximili gave us?”

“Let’s do that tomorrow,” I said.  “It’s been a long day.  Between last night, and Marco, and all this going on…I need to give my brain some time to relax.”  I wished it was all just a dream.  Heck, I’d even take a hallucination.  I wanted an easy plan we could use to take down the Yeerks in one swift stroke, like how the Empire wanted to use the Death Star to destroy the Rebellion in one, swift stroke.  I knew it wouldn’t be as easy for us, either.

“I can think of some ways to help you relax,” Cassie said coyly.  “It’s been a while.”

“I know, we took last night off,” I said.

“And this morning.”

“Then we have some time to make up for,” I grinned.  We’d been married for 12 years, but sometimes I still felt like a horny teenager around my wife.  They say nobody really grows up; that you just learn how to act in public.  Well, I’d taken the public back to their homes.  It was time for me to be a horny teenager again.

Cassie made her way down the hall, toward the bedroom.  The way she walked…I’m getting goosebumps now thinking about it.  She swung her hips back and forth, drawing my eyes from her jet-black curls all the way down to her ass.  I followed her.  I grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled it off over my head.  For a brief second, my shirt covered my eyes.  In that second, Cassie had turned around. 

We locked eyes.  She has this way of staring into your soul.  Like she could see every Jake that was there, and loved them all the same.  She could see Action Jake and Husband Jake, and any other compartmentalized self I had created.  But she didn’t care.  She wanted me.  All of me.  She leaned against the wall and seductively arched her back.  I was unbuckling my belt. 

Cassie knew how to seduce me without taking off her clothes.  She could wear a nun’s uniform – a real nun’s uniform, not the slutty ones you see in pornos or on Halloween – and still manage to seduce me.  She’d know just what faces to make and what to say.  Maybe I’m giving her too much credit.  I mean, I was 31, but we already established that when it comes to sex, I might as well have been a 13-year-old.

Cassie had the art of seduction mastered.  So by the time I followed her into the bedroom, I was half-naked, and she still had everything on.  I tripped over my pants and landed against the bed.  “Eager, are we?” she asked with a wink.  Twelve years ago, I would have been embarrassed, and it would have hurt my performance, but twelve years of being a geek about her body, and I’d learned to compose myself.

“Hell yeah,” I said.  “I get to have sex with the hottest girl I know.”  She rolled her eyes.  Like I said, she’d mastered the subtleties of seduction.  I’d mastered what comes next.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

I didn’t mind working Sundays.  I wasn’t religious, so it’s not like I was missing out on church.  State law meant I got time-and-a-third.  An extra seven bucks an hour aint bad.   Our town is big on our state’s football team, which meant Sunday afternoons had a huge rush, but Sunday evening was pretty slow.  Half the time we ended up just hanging out most of the night until time to lock up.

Tobias often worked Sundays as well, but that has more to do with him being a high schooler than it did any other reason.  From what I could tell, he didn’t need the extra money.  Not only was his Uncle basically rolling in it, but he didn’t seem to care enough about anything to want a lot of money.  Still, he worked Sunday night with me.

I ran into him in the back room.  “Did you have a nice day off?”

“I guess,” he said.  He looked up and down the long line of pallets to see if anyone was there.  “I did my homework.”

“You did?” I asked.  “Did it work?”

“Totally!  I morphed my cat, my sister, I went over to my Uncle’s friend’s house who’s a hunter and morphed a red-tailed hawk and his beagle.  I also got a golden retriever and a terrier, but I didn’t try them out.”

“Wow, that’s a lot,” I said.  I processed that list as quickly as I could.  “Wait, what was that middle one?”

“The red-tailed hawk?” he asked.  I was thinking more about him morphing his sister.  I knew Emily.  She was about fourteen, and hadn’t hit her punk emo rebellion phase (or whatever it’s called) yet, with long, straight dirty-blonde hair.  She actually looked a lot like Rachel did when she was that age, or like Rachel’s younger sister Sarah probably will in a year or two.

I decided not to correct Tobias.  I didn’t need to hear about a teenage boy turning into a teenage girl.  “Yeah, the Hawk.”

“It was awesome!” he said.  “Like the best roller coaster ride ever.  Only, there’s no tracks, so you can go wherever you want.  And no line.  You just have to morph.”

“How long did it take?” I asked.  “Did it hurt?”  Yesterday, I had been focused on the mission.  Today, it was about the experience.  The three of us had a super power, and Tobias was the first to try it.

“It felt a little odd, like when you’re wearing a new style of shirt for the first time.  Only took a few minutes to morph, and again to go back.”

“I’ll have to give it a try myself,” I said.  It sounded pretty cool.  Weird, but cool.  When I was a kid, I loved animals.  I’d had a golden retriever named Homer, a boxer named Tyson, two cats named Simba and Scar, and a pet rat that lasted a day before Simba or Scar got him.  Ten-year-old me thought they’d be friends because it was a pet rat and not a pest rat.  Boy was I wrong.

“Oh, you should!” Tobias exclaimed.  Once again, I saw some excitement from him.  Maybe I was wrong about him.  Maybe he wasn’t just a bratty teenager after all.  “I’ve been acquiring everything I can, just so I can see what it’s all like.  The cat, the hawk, the dog, they’re all so different.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I imagine being able to fly or being as small as a cat-“

“No, that’s not what I mean.”  It wasn’t like Tobias to interrupt people.  Usually he was too timid to break the silence.  “I mean, they felt different.  Like, Tanner, my cat, was king of the world.  The hawk was angry.  The dog…oh man, I’m still riding that high.”

“Is it the dog, or just that you can do something cool?”

“Little column A, little column B,” he admitted. 

“We don’t know if there’s a limit on how many morphs you can get,” I warned him.  “So don’t get too carried away.”

“You mean, don’t get 5 more dog breeds?” he asked.

“Yeah.” 

“Well, there’s only one problem I had with morphing so far,” Tobias said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Clothes don’t morph,” he explained.  “I’m glad I tried it in my room first, otherwise that would have been embarrassing.”

“You’ve obviously never been in a barracks shower before,” I said.  “You learn not to care after a while.  Still, we should probably keep morphing behind closed doors.  Don’t want the wrong person to see us doing it.”

“Same thing with being naked in public,” Tobias said.

“True.”  I would have talked to him more about morphing, or a bit about the Yeerks, but another helper clerk came into the back to grab something.  Tobias and I didn’t get another chance to talk about morphing or the Yeerks that night.  He got off an hour before I did, and this time his Uncle was able to pick him up.  I’d seen enough crazies in my day to know something was off about his Uncle, but it was hard to put my finger on it.  Whatever it is, he kept it hidden well enough away.

 

* * *

 

 

When I got home, Rachel and Cassie were waiting for me.  “Cassie says you didn’t do your homework,” Rachel teased.

“It’s her damn fault!” I argued.

“I don’t need to know, ‘cuz,” Rachel held up her hands to her ears.  Cassie was laughing at her.  She’d done this on purpose.  “Sorry I went there.”

“So what did you morph?” I asked.  “Tobias morphed his cat, a few dogs, his sister, even a hawk!”

“What was that middle one?” Cassie asked.

“A few dogs,” I replied.  “I…didn’t ask about the other.”

“Doesn’t his sister look kind of like Rachel?”

“For fuck’s sake, Cassie, I’m not into jailbait,” Rachel argued.

“How’s he ‘bait’ if you’re not into him?” I said.  On the one hand, I didn’t want to think about my little cousin and her sex life.  On the other hand, it was fun to get her all riled up.

“I morphed a raccoon.”  For some reason, Rachel seemed eager to change the subject.  “My neighbor trapped one, I acquired it before he could kill it.”

“Poor thing,” Cassie said.

“He says you can’t relocate them, because state law says you can’t upset the ecosystem you dump them in.”

“I know that,” Cassie said.  “Doesn’t change the fact it’s just a cute, defenseless little creature.”

“He was bit by a raccoon.  Had to go to the ER and get antibiotics and everything.”

“So how’d it go?” I asked.

“Well, I had just come in from a run.  When I morphed, my jogging pants and t-shirt fell off, but my underwear morphed with me.”

“That’s strange,” I said.  “Tobias said he was completely naked.”

“Does he wear boxers or briefs?” Rachel asked.

“Of course _you’d_ like to know,” Cassie teased.

“If he’s wearing tighty whiteys, those should have morphed with him,” Rachel explained.  “I tried morphing again with yoga pants and a wife beater, and it worked just fine.  You _can_ morph clothes, they just have to be skintight.”

I tried to think if I had anything like that.  I had wife beaters, sure, but that’s not what I was worried about.  As I had told Tobias, the Army beat the shame out of me.  Besides, I work out 2-3 hours a day to stay in shape.  I don’t want to seem arrogant, but I have a nice body.  I have a 6-pack.  I can do the pec dance.  I look good shirtless.  Cassie thinks so, anyway.

My problem is I didn’t have anything like that below the belt.  At best, I could wear a wife beater and my socks.  I could just imagine it:  I go into battle, rifle in my hands, my manparts in the wind, a breeze tickling my asscrack….

“Honey, we need to go shopping,” I told Cassie.

“Tighty whiteys could be fun,” she said.  Rachel once again plugged her ears.  “Or better yet, you can get Spiderman underwear!”

“I’m getting boxer-briefs,” I said.   “And then do you know where I can get something to try out morphing?”

“I’ve got the perfect place!” Cassie said.

 

* * *

 

 

We made two stops that night.  The first was to the mall to pick me up some new clothes.  I got some new underwear, Under Armour t-shirts that were about three sizes too small, and yoga shorts.  I felt odd buying these.  The shorts especially seemed like a cross between men’s underwear and women’s clothes, but Rachel said they were the only thing tight enough to morph that weren’t too embarrassing for her to see me in.

Normally I complain about going shopping with the girls, but this trip was perfect.  Rachel knew exactly which stores in the mall to go to, and who would have the best gear.  She knows fashion better than she knows how to punch.  This was her domain.  I was just along for the ride as we zipped from shop to shop. 

I told Rachel she’d have to help Tobias shop.  I have no idea why she hit me a second later.  We picked up a few things for her as well.  She had gym shorts, but she needed yoga shorts, too.  She picked up some new sports bras as well.  I couldn’t imagine if we’d gotten these powers a few decades ago, before yoga pants were a thing.  We’d have to wear something silly, like bike shorts or leotards. 

Once we were done shopping, it was Cassie’s turn.  Her domain.  She took us to one of the wildlife shelters she works at.  Well, it says “wildlife” shelter, but half the animals looked domesticated.  Some animals were dropped off because they were no longer wanted, some were lost or runaways, some were abused and escaped.  It didn’t matter the story, it was all tragic.

There were three wings of the shelter: dog, cat, and other.  “I told I wouldn’t fight, but I’d be a big help,” Cassie said.  “Didn’t I?”

“You did,” I agreed.  “So, what should I morph?”  I hadn’t given it any thought, really.  Tobias made it sound like everything he morphed was awesome, so that didn’t help me narrow anything down. 

“What’s your biggest animal?” Rachel asked.

“We’ve got a few bigger dogs,” Cassie said.  “A rot, a pit, couple of labs.  Why?”

“We’re going to be fighting, aren’t we?” Rachel had a point.  If we were going to fight, we needed firepower.

“If you want firepower, this isn’t the right place,” Cassie said.  “We can go to the zoo for that.  I thought today was just a test run.”

“Besides, firepower isn’t everything,” I said.  “If I want firepower, I’m bringing my AR or my Remington.  I want to morph so I can do things that _I_ can’t do.  Like fly.”

Cassie had other ideas.  “You could morph something small and hide, you could morph something fast and run, you could go fish and breathe underwater.”

“If you do any of those things to get in somewhere, you aren’t bringing your gun with you,” Rachel pointed out.  “So, I come back to firepower.”

“Very well,” I said.  “Let’s get firepower, but let’s also get some utility while we’re here.  Tobias seemed to just acquire everything he got his hands on, but I think we should try not to overdo it.  I don’t know if there’s a limit to what we can morph.”

“Should we both get the same things?” Rachel asked.

“We should be able to do the same things,” I said.  “I don’t know that we need the same morphs.  Might be good to have a little diversity.  So, do you want the Rottweiler or the Pitbull?”

“I’ll take the pit,” Rachel said.

“Good choice,” Cassie said.  “The pit’s a female, rot’s a male.”

“Not that it matters, since Tobias morphed Rachel Junior,” I said.

“Asswipe,” Rachel shot back.

“Okay, let’s get back on track,” Cassie said.  “You should each get a cat, too.  Cats are everywhere.  Then we’ve got a few birds.”

“Anything like a hawk or eagle?” I asked.

“Not today, but we have those at the zoo,” Cassie said.  “Owls, too.  Those would be good for nighttime.”

“Good idea,” I said.  When I first got any semblance of authority in the Army, I had an iron fist over my men and made it a point to criticize every mistake.  I wasn’t trying to be an asshole – okay maybe a little bit – it’s just that I wanted us to be perfect.  After a while, I learned that encouragement can go just as far as criticism, and made it a point to point out when people did things well.

“So, we’ve got a crow and a pigeon-“

“I call crow!” Rachel and I both said at the same time.

“I called it first!” Rachel exclaimed.

“We’ll both take crow,” I said.  “We don’t have to do something different for _every_ morph.”

“Anyway…” Cassie said.  She didn’t want to be derailed again.  “We’ve also got a lizard, a couple squirrels, a raccoon, and a skunk.”

“That’d be good for room clearing,” Rachel laughed.

“I can do that without morphing skunk,” I said indignantly.  “Well, let’s begin.”  I had imagined that I would start off morphing by acquiring an animal, and then morphing it, and then later on getting another.  This was just another shopping trip.

First, I acquired the Rottweiler.  He was the sweetest dog I’ve ever met, and I’ve met some pretty nice dogs in the past.  From what I can tell, he was dumb as a back of rocks, but he was really nice.  “Here boy,” I said.  He came right over to me, tongue lolling to the side, excited for some attention (maybe just hopeful for dinner).  He had a cast on his front leg.

“He ran away and got hit by a car,” Cassie explained.  “He’ll be fine.  His owners are going to pick him up tomorrow.  So it’s a good thing we came tonight.”  I scratched the good boy behind the ears, and then concentrated on him.  I thought about how dopey he looked, although I realized it might be the painkillers.  I felt his short fur underneath my fingernails, smelt his godawful breath.

He closed his eyes.  I’m not sure if it was the morphing trance Aximili told us about, or if it was just because being itched behind the ears felt so good.  When I was done acquiring him, I let go, and he instantly jumped back into being a hyperactive goofball.

Rachel acquired the Pitbull next.  According to Cassie, this one had been abused and then dumped on their lot.  At first, she didn’t trust Rachel.  Cassie gave Rachel some meat scraps, which she used to earn the trust of Marge.  Even then, Marge didn’t want to let Rachel touch her.  Luckily, the morphing torpor worked.  All it took was one touch from Rachel, and Marge calmed down, just long enough for Rachel to acquire her.

Next, we went to look at the cats.  Rachel found a black tabby that had to be at least 20 pounds.  I’m not talking about a fat cat, either.  This thing was long, and it was built, but it wasn’t fat.  I went the other way.  There were a pair of kittens several months old.  They weren’t quite adults, maybe they were teenagers.  I wanted to get a big, alpha cat like Rachel, but Cassie told me I had to get a kitten.  So, we compromised, and I got a kitten.

Finally, it was time for us to go to the “other” hall and get some different morphs.  Rachel and I each got a crow, a squirrel, and a lizard.  I got a raccoon to match Rachel’s.  Every single animal did the same thing:  they were skittish at first, but as soon as we started acquiring them, they calmed down long enough for us to get their DNA. 

We tried to morph skunk, but when we got close it turned around and raised its tail.  We didn’t want to risk getting sprayed, so we backed off.

“Let’s see ‘em!” Cassie said.  “We’ve done our shopping, now time to try on the clothes!”

I disagreed.  “Let’s go home first.  I don’t want to traumatize these animals.”

“Yeah, home is better,” Rachel said.  “Trust me.”

“Home it is,” Cassie agreed.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

It was almost midnight when we got home.  _I’m getting too old for this_ , I thought.  It had been several late nights in a row.  I wasn’t a teenager anymore.  The Army taught me how to get up early.  More and more, getting up early meant going to bed early.  Not super early, mind you.  I wasn’t ancient.  But I wasn’t a kid anymore.

“I’ll try morphing in the morning,” I said.

“No,” Cassie said.  There was no explanation.  It wasn’t up for debate.

“Yeah, you signed up for this war, ‘cuz,” Rachel said.  “Do your part.”  I couldn’t argue with that.

“Fine, at least let me change first,” I said.  I walked into my room and shut the door.  It had been a long time since I’d been nervous.  Last time was when I left the Army and had to find a civilian job.  Before that, it was several years ago, my sixth or seventh mission.  After that, the nerves were just background noise.   

 _Why am I so wigged out about this?_   I asked myself.  I didn’t really know.  I still think about it sometimes.  That night, right before I tried morphing the first time.  What was it I was worried about?  Was I worried that the morphing wouldn’t work?  That might be a relief.  If it doesn’t work, this is all a dream, and I can keep being Husband Jake.  If it works?  That means it’s all real.  That cements it.  If I could morph, then I had to be a soldier again.

I changed into the clothes Rachel helped me pick out.  Brand new boxer-briefs, a black t-shirt so tight I looked skinnier with it on than I did naked, and blue yoga shorts that rode up so bad I’m pretty sure they should buy me dinner.

I came back out into the living room.  “I’m ready,” I said.

“What are you going to try first?” Cassie asked.  It was a good question.  I could sort of sense all six animals swirling around inside me.  I’m not sure where exactly they were inside me, but they were there.  Cassie thought it was a dressing room.  Well, I had six new outfits to try on, and I didn’t even know if I _could_ morph yet.

“How about the kitten?” Rachel suggested.  “Since Cassie made you get that one anyway.”

“Good idea,” Cassie said.

“Of course _you_ agree,” I groaned.

“That’s not it.  You’re small enough to handle and too big to hide,” Cassie said.  “And the crow would probably crap all over my clean living room.”

“Okay, I’ll turn into a cute, cuddly kitten for you,” I said.  “How did you do it, Rachel?”

“You have to concentrate on it,” she said.  “You have to picture the cat, put its image in your mind.  Want to become it.  Picture yourself becoming the cat.  The morphing thing knows what to do, but you have to make it work.”

“I’ll give it a try,” I said.

“There is no try,” Cassie chided me.  I didn’t reply.  I was too busy trying what Rachel had said.  I pictured that cat.  It was just barely too big to hold with one hand.  It had white fur, with a black spot on its side and a tiny spot on its tummy.  I pictured its sharp claws, its furry little ears, its black-tipped tail.  All of a sudden, the morph triggered.

It started with my ears.  The cartilage melted and elongated, pointing to a tip like elf ears.  My nose was next, it shrunk and slid down towards my lips.  My whole jaw shot out of my face like a balloon.  My eyes shifted, and all of a sudden the dark corners in the room got a whole lot brighter. 

My skin started to change color.  I was white already, but now my clothes started to turn white, except where the black spots were supposed to be.  My stubble grew into a full beard, and then all over my body hair sprouted out.  It was sort of like going through puberty all over again in a matter of seconds.  The coarse hair quickly split into finer hairs, the curly hairs in my beard and…other places…straightened out, and then faded to match the color of my skin.

The shirt was gone.  So were the rest of my clothes.  Now, it was all skin and fur.  I could feel my organs shifting around inside me.  The morphing cube took away any pain or nausea this would cause, but it still felt strange.  Like an itch, or like Tobias said – that feeling when you’re wearing clothes you’re just not used to.  Only these clothes were inside me.

At this point, I was basically a furry.  I had a cat-like face and fur all over my body, but I was still human-sized.  I sprouted a tail.  That was strange.  It felt like someone cracking my back over and over again, only each crack was lower and lower.  My human brain couldn’t even comprehend what the tail felt, but my human brain was being replaced by a feline brain that could.  My mind, my human mind, was still there, but the brain was no longer mine.

All that was left was for my body to catch up to the rest of me.  Well, more like I had to catch down.  Shrinking is a strange feeling.  It’s almost like falling to infinity.  Once again, the morphing technology kept me from having that sinking feeling in my gut.  That didn’t stop my mind from wigging out.  The thing is, when you shrink, your perspective changes. 

When I was over six feet tall, I could reach up and touch the ceiling.  Now, the ceiling was twice as high as me, but the floor still seemed like it was just as far away.  It was my height from my eyes to the floor.  As I shrunk down to just a couple feet tall, it felt like I was in a large stadium.  Cassie and Rachel looked like giants to me.  But, my perspective shifted, and the ground seemed just as far away as it was before, even though it kept looming closer and closer.

My arms and my legs were among the last things to change.  My spine curved.  My feet stretched out so I could stand on my toes.  My thumbnails and my big toenails melted away into my fur, but the rest of my nails slid down my digits and lodged themselves in sheathes between my fingers.  My wrists bent back, and I fell over onto my hands.  _Paws_ , I thought.  I didn’t have feet anymore.  These were paws. 

It took another moment for the morph to finalize.  My teeth grew long and skinny.  My cat’s brain fully formed itself out of what was once a human brain.  Muscles attached themselves to the right parts of the bone, and my body settled into place.  I was a cat.  No, that’s not right.

I was a god.

The world existed for one purpose:  me.  After all, if I were not here to notice the world, why would it even be here?  I looked up.  The tall, two-legged servants looked down at me.  “Aw, he’s so cuuuute!” the darker, shorter servant squealed.

<I’m not cute.  I’m fabulous!> 

“Whoa, that was like how Aximili talked,” said the darker servant.

“Except…it sounded more like a human,” said the taller servant with lighter hair.

 _Human_ , I thought.  _Oh, right, I’m Jake._   I snapped out of my deity delusion, but I still didn’t quite have the hang of this whole cat thing.  Cassie knelt down to pet me, or pick me up or something, but the cat was a little skittish.  She was still a servant, but this servant didn’t have my permission to touch me.

<Hands off the king,> I said.  As I jumped away gracefully to get out of her reach.  Well, the kitten thought it was graceful.  I probably looked like a derp.

“Okay, Elvis,” Cassie said sarcastically.  

“Give him a minute,” Rachel said.  “I went whacko for a bit as the raccoon, too.  It’s an entirely different set of instincts you have to get used to.”

“Like adolescence,” Cassie mused.  She followed after me, but my kitty instincts were still on high alert.  I ran away and jumped onto the couch.  It looked like jumping onto the roof of a house, but it felt like jumping onto the sidewalk.  Compared to how small I was, I could jump pretty high!

Cassie sat down on the couch next to me, but I dug my way into the cushions.

“I thought you said the cat wouldn’t be able to hide,” Rachel said.  She was laughing at Cassie.  My wife.  My favorite servant.  I couldn’t have a lesser servant insult my favorite.  In one move, I leapt out of the couch towards Rachel, all four legs spread-eagle, all of my sharp little kitten claws extended as far as I could stretch them out.

I caught her leg.  My claws dug into her pants to get a good hold.  Did I mention she was still wearing yoga pants?  “Yeow!” She screamed in pain.  I jumped off her leg before she could respond.  “What the hell, Jake?”

I hissed at her.  _That’s enough_ , I thought, and then I turned around and ran for the bedroom.  I jumped up on the bed.  _What am I doing?  I’m a human, I just look like a cat._   Well, I wasn’t a human.  Not anymore.  My mind might have been, and if I could ever get control over my body again, then maybe I’d act like a human.  But I was a cat.  And I did what all cats do, something I couldn’t do as a human even if I wanted to.  I started licking my butt.

It was like scratching myself.  You know, the kind of scratching you try not to do in public.  Cats scratch with their hind claws.  What they can’t scratch with those, they use their tongue for.  My butt itched.  I scratched it.  At least, that’s how the cat felt.  The revulsion of what I was doing was enough to bring Jake back in charge.

<Sorry about that, ladies,> I said.  They didn’t respond.  I must not have been thought-speaking loud enough.  Before I amped up the volume, I realized that I should probably target my messages to them.  I didn’t need the neighbors wondering why they were hearing voices all of a sudden.  I thought about both Cassie and Rachel, and said again, <sorry about that, ladies.>

“It’s okay,” Rachel called from the other room.  “I told you, I went through it, too.”  I could hear the pattering of feet coming in from the other room.  It wasn’t much louder than when I was human, but it was much clearer, like going from a bad radio connection to an MP3. 

<I’m in complete control now,> I said.

“Good,” Cassie said, as she walked into the room.  The cat’s instincts took over again, and I immediately dove under the bed.  “Really, Jake?”

<I thought I was in control,> I said.  I forced myself to come out from under the bed.  I let Cassie and Rachel pet me.  Both the cat and the human Jake felt weird about that.  The cat wasn’t so hot on being handled yet, and this was my wife and cousin touching me in ways I don’t think either of them have touched me before.

I started to purr.  Once it started, it swelled.  I was purring loud.  Still, the cat wasn’t sure what to do.  The scritches felt really good, but there was this nagging anxiety in the back of my mind.  I wasn’t exactly a cuddly cat, I guess.  “How’s that feel?” Cassie asked.

<Good,> I said.  <Strange, but good.> I changed my thought-speak to a whisper that only Cassie could hear.  <Like the time you blindfolded me and only used a feather.>

“I can’t believe you just told Rachel about the tickler teaser sex!”  Cassie’s mocha skin turned bright red, redder than I’d ever seen any mulatto’s face before.

<I only told you,> I said to both of them.

“Oh.”  Cassie said.  “Oh!”  When she realized that _she_ had just told Rachel.

Rachel didn’t have anything to say.  She just face-palmed.   My cat eyes saw the movement, and I got excited.  When Rachel put her hand down, it was time for me to pounce again!  The cat brain knew Rachel was tall, but her hand was small enough to be an acceptable target.  “Yeow!” she yelled.  I felt my claws sink into flesh.  _Victory is mine!_

<Sorry,> I apologized again.  <I’m mostly in control, but there are times the instincts just…take over.>

“It’s a good thing we’re practicing now,” Rachel said.  “We need to learn to control these.”

<You’re right,> I agreed.  <But, I think I’ve had enough for right now.  I don’t have the energy to control the cat.>

“I hope it gets easier.  I hope we’re not slaves to the animal the entire time we use these morphs.”

<Well, I think I’ve learned enough for now.  I’ll go ahead and demorph.  Um…Rachel?  How exactly do I do that?>

“Same process, only in reverse.  Think about yourself, and concentrate on wanting to be human again.”

Once again, I tried what Rachel said.  I thought about myself.  My short dark hair.  My hazel eyes.  My muscles.  My new t-shirt and shorts.  The tattoo of a skull wearing a 1940’s Army helmet with a pair of M-14s as crossbones on my ribs, a Rangers coat of arms on my left tricep, and a Seattle Seahawks decal on my shoulder.  My rough hands.  My large, uh, feet.  Once again, the morphing process kicked in like a bang.

Even though it was the same idea backwards – go from cat to human – it was nothing like the last time.  The last time at least looked kind of graceful.  I went from human to furry to cat.  This was sans grace.  First, I lost all my fur.  Have you ever seen a hairless cat?  Yes.  Have you ever seen a cute hairless cat?  Me neither.  I looked like a shriveled scrotum with legs.

It got worse before it got better.  My hands and feet changed next, but my legs and arms didn’t.  I had giant hands and feet on tiny little arms and legs.  My ears shifted down my face, and then my face imploded.  My skin wouldn’t melt and tighten until much later on.  Cat skin is very loose; it’s part of how they can get into places you wouldn’t expect them to fit.  My skin was even looser.

I started to grow.  That made the whole look even worse.  Cassie ran out of the room.  The morphing technology kept me from getting nauseous while morphing, but it didn’t stop Cassie from getting nauseous watching me morph.  I could hear her throwing up in the bathroom.  I still had the cat’s sense of smell.  If I could get nauseous, I would have probably sympathy-puked on the bed.

After that, it was all uphill.  My claws turned back into nails.  My skin tightened around my body, and my clothes reformed.  My eyes turned back into human eyes.  My hair grew back.  My organs shifted back into place.  My body realigned itself and my arms and legs grew back to the right size.  The last things to go were my teeth and my tail.  It was only then that I dared to look in the mirror.

“My tattoos are back!” I exclaimed.

“Mine, too,” Rachel said.

“I didn’t know you had a tattoo,” I thought aloud.

“It’s not in a place you’d have seen it,” she said.

“Hmmm…the technology is supposed to be able to heal wounds, but I still have my battle scars.”

“I still have my ears pierced,” Rachel said.  “And I morphed earlier.”

“So did Tobias, now I think of it.  His hair was still dyed black, too.”  Granted, I hadn’t been looking for it, but I would have noticed if he was different.  At least, I think I would have.  I usually noticed when Cassie got a haircut, and I know most guys fail to notice that.  Tobias had gauged ears, that’s not something you can easily fix if the holes disappear.

Rachel grabbed my hand.  Her touch calmed me.  Relaxed me.  For a moment anyway.  “Wait a minute,” I said.  “Did you just acquire me?”

“Maybe,” Rachel said.  “Is it alright if I morph you?”

“Go ahead,” I said.  So she did.  Going into cat had taken me almost five minutes, and it took four and some change to go back to human.  It took less than two for Rachel to turn into me.  She was already almost the same size as me, and she was in just as good of shape. 

I had a little bit of a bigger frame, which her body adjusted to.  Her hair shortened and darkened.  Her face shifted a bit, her jaw got stronger.  Stubble grew on her cheeks.  Hair sprouted out everywhere else.  Arms, legs, anywhere guys have hair that girls shouldn’t, she did.  Legs…yes, her yoga pants had melded into her legs.  Her sports bra into her chest.  Her breasts flattened out and firmed up into pecks.  Her shoulders grew broad. 

In just a few short minutes, my cousin had turned into me.  There were some differences.  “You don’t have any tats,” I noticed.

“No scars, either,” she said.

Cassie walked in, “you’re not circumcised,” she noticed.

“Which do you prefer?” I asked.

“Circumcised,” she said.

“Well, I don’t need this morph anymore,” Rachel said.  She started to de-morph.

“Wait.”   Rachel stopped morphing, and looked at me.  “Can you thought-speak.”

<I don’t know,> Rachel said.

“Holy shit, you can!” I exclaimed. 

<Cool,> Rachel said.

 _Can you hear me?_   I asked.  After a few seconds, “did you hear me?”

“No,” Cassie said.  “It must only work when you’re morphed.”

“Now put on some clothes,” I said. 

“I can just morph back into my clothes,” she argued.

“Rach, I think Jake wants you to put on his clothes, and then see if you can morph them.”

“Oohhh.”  She may be blonde, but she’s not a dumb blonde.  Most of the time.

“I’m testing logistics,” I explained.  She nodded her head.  Or should I say:  he nodded my head.  Rachel put on some of the stuff we’d just bought, and then de-morphed.  In just a few moments, she was once again my cousin, complete with clothes and earrings.

“This is exhausting,” she complained.

I agreed.  “It’s like sprinting.  For the whole time you morph.  You’re not out of breath afterwards…but it takes it out of you.”

“At least this is just a few minutes to go to another human,” Rachel said.  I nodded.   “Okay, time to go back for another round.”  Rachel morphed back into me.  This time, it was less embarrassing.  She was wearing black shorts and a light gray shirt.  They didn’t leave much to the imagination, but it was better than what she was wearing before.

“So what did we learn?” Cassie asked.

“We learned that you come back exactly as you were, but you morph the raw DNA,” I said.  “You get the haircut they have, and whatever clothes you de-morphed in, if they could morph.”

“Do you want to try morphing me and see what happens?” Cassie asked.

“If I did, and we got it on, would that be sex or masturbation?” I asked.

“Oh grow up you two,” Rachel complained.

“Hey, we’re married,” I said.  “This _is_ grown-up!” 

Rachel rolled her eyes.  “Am I done?”

“Yeah, you’re done,” I said.

“Can I crash here?”

“Sure…just not as me.  Anyway…I need to get some rest.  This was very informative, but I need to sleep.  I’ll figure out the next step tomorrow.”

“I think you should sleep on the couch tonight,” Cassie said.

“Why?”

“Between Rachel looking like you, and you looking like that…thing.  You say you need some rest.  Well…so do I.”

That didn’t sit well with me.  I wasn’t exactly mad at Cassie.  At the time, maybe I thought I was.  Either way, I didn’t end up sleeping on the couch.  I picked one of our spare rooms and slept there.  But I didn’t get to sleep next to my wife, so all in all, the night was a loss.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

“I missed you,” Cassie said.  I woke her up with breakfast in bed.  It wasn’t much.  Peanut butter toast and a cup of orange juice.  She was the chef.  I was…more practical in my cooking.  If a six year old could make it, I was your man.  If it required any sort of culinary capability, I’ll refer you to Cassie.  Still, the gesture earned me some good will.

I leaned in to kiss her.

“Ew, brush your teeth first,” she complained.

“Fine,” I whined.  I went out into the hall and ran into Rachel.

“Ready for more practice?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said.  “I’ve been procrastinating a bit much.  Morphing last night put me over the edge, though.”

“Like you only had a foot in, but now you’ve taken the plunge?”

“Something like that,” I said. 

“Let’s try something bigger,” she suggested.  “Let’s go dog this time!”

“Let me brush my teeth first,” I said.

“I thought you were done procrastinating.”

I didn’t answer.  I just exhaled right into her face. 

She changed her mind real quick.  “Go brush your teeth.”

A few minutes later, we both tried out the dog morph.  It was easier to morph the second time.  It might’ve been a few seconds faster.  But it was just as ugly as before.  If Rachel and I hadn’t been morphing at the same time, I’m sure one of us would have ended up with our heads in the toilet.

It was a little different than turning into a cat, but not much.  My ears grew even bigger than last time, but flopped down.  My jaw muscles were huge.  My cheeks felt like a weightlifter’s biceps.  I could even flex them.  The fur was much darker than last time, and my nails simply changed into claws, instead of retreating into my hands and feet.  My back only cracked once as the tiniest stub of a tail emerged right over my butt. 

I didn’t shrink much this time.  I shrunk more from falling over onto all fours than I did from the morph itself.  My skin still itched when my fur sprouted, and I still felt the strange sensation of my organs morphing with the rest of my body.  In just over four and a half minutes, I was a Rottweiler.

Outside, I was a bit bigger, and had a few minor changes from when I was in cat morph.  But inside…oh boy!  Oh boy, oh boy, ohboyohboyohboy!  This was AWESOME!  I knew now why Tobias thought he was still riding a high.  The sounds!  The smells!  Eh, the sights were dull, but oh my goodness this world was awesome!

But wait, there was another dog.  The hair on my back raised up.  I looked her direction.  I smelled the air.  She was a strong breed.  I should let her know who the alpha is.  I let out a low growl.

The Pitbull across the room barked back at me, a deep, throaty bark.  Her tail was stiff as a board.  She wasn’t playing.  She meant business.

I didn’t want to fight her, but this was my home.  She was an invader.  I barked back.  She met my growl.  We started to inch towards each other.  _Rachel,_ I thought to myself.  Instantly, the dog brain switched from fight to happy again.  Rachel was my cousin!  I liked Rachel, she was fun.  As soon as I told myself she was a friend, I knew we wouldn’t fight.

Rachel had other ideas.  She lunged at me.   I was caught off guard.  I didn’t know what game we were playing.  I was knocked over.  I was bigger, but she had the element of surprise.  Before I could get up, she had climbed on top of my shoulders and pinned me down.  I felt her warm breath on my whiskers.  Her teeth sunk into my jowls.

<Ow!> I screamed in pain.  I tried to make it so only Rachel and Cassie could hear me, but I can’t be certain my neighbors didn’t hear a disembodied wail.

Cassie came running into the room.  She was horrified.  She knew we were having trouble with the dog instincts, but she didn’t know how to help without getting caught in the middle.  The Pitbull’s jaws were locked around my mouth.  I smelled blood.  I tasted blood.  My blood.

“Bad dog!” Cassie yelled.  It was about all she could do.

<Cassie, I’ll be fine,> I said.  <Morphing is supposed to heal me, anyway.  Rachel, GET OFF!>

I finally had my wits about me enough to fight back.  I rolled over to break Rachel’s hold on me.  My jowls were ripped and torn by her dull canines.  I used my front paws to push her off my body, and kept rolling to throw her to the side.

<Friend, Rachel.  Friend,> I said.  It was like I had flipped a switch.  Suddenly, the pit in front of me was wagging her tail, excited to see her friend.  That’s what it’s like to be a dog. 

Humans have such complex emotions.  We can be happy, cheerful, delighted, overjoyed, thrilled.  We can be angry, annoyed, bitter, furious, enraged, irate.  We can be afraid, anxious, nervous, scared.  We can be sad, depressed, somber, sorry, guilty.

Dogs have the same emotions, but not quite the range.  Dogs can be happy, sad, scared, or angry.  That’s it.  It’s not a sliding scale from one to the other.  It _is_ one or the other, cranked to eleven, every time.  When I first morphed, I was happy!  I was the happiest I think I’d ever been.  (Author’s note:  please do NOT tell Cassie I said that.  I wrote this line after she proofread this for me).

I went from happy to scared real quick, but now that we were friends, I was happy again!  Who cared if I was bleeding all over the carpet?  Cassie did, but I didn’t.  My mouth felt like it was on fire, and someone was trying to put it out by stabbing the flames with chisels, but who cares.  I had friends!  And Rachel wanted to play.

<Sorry about that,> she said.  <Do you want to re-morph so you can heal that up?>

<Not really, I said.

“If you don’t, you’re on the couch for a month,” Cassie threatened.  “I already have to clean up the living room.”

<Fine.> I de-morphed and re-morphed.  When my mouth de-morphed, the lacerations went away, and they didn’t come back when I re-morphed.  Cassie went into the other room so she wouldn’t get sick again.  Rachel’s dog form didn’t get queasy watching me morph.  She cocked her head to one side, the way dogs are wont to do when something strange is happening.

<Your scent is changing,> she noticed.  <The dog is confused.>

Morphing for the second time was easier than the first.  Morphing the dog for the second time was an even bigger drop in difficulty.   It was also easier for me to control.  <Practice is important,> I said.

<Everyone knows that.>

I explained, <I mean, morphing the same animal, it gets easier.  A couple more times, and I should have complete control.>

<So do you think we should try the others out?> Rachel asked.

<Fuck that,> I said.  <This is fun.  Let’s go out and play.  Cass, can you let us outside, pleeeaaaaase!>

<You sound like a six-year-old when you morph,> Rachel teased.

“You should hear him trying to woo me,” Cassie said. 

<I really shouldn’t,> Rachel argued.

<You really shouldn’t,> I said.  <I don’t know how I get laid.>

“You guys don’t have collars or leashes,” Cassie said.  “What if someone picks you up as a stray?”

<Who cares!> I said.  That was mostly the dog talking.  <I.  Want.  To.  Plaaayyyy!>

“Alright, but stay close,” she said.  “I’ll set the oven timer for an hour.  Be back by then.”

<Yippee!>

<Woo hoo!>

Cassie opened the front door for us, and we took off outside.  When I was a cat, the world was mine!  But as a dog, I was of the world.  It wasn’t here to serve me, it was here to explore!  I was an adventurer!  An explorer!  I had to notice everything.  My nose was my instrument.  My memory was my log.  I had to catalog everything!

Rachel and I took turns leading.  One would sniff the ground, the other would follow.  We found the trails of squirrels, rabbits, other dogs.  <Hang on, I’m going to make this tree mine,> I said.

<You’re not going to-> Rachel started to say, but she stopped mid-sentence when she saw my leg in the air.  <Oh for fuck’s sake.>

<What?> I asked.

<I wonder if that smells like the other Rot, the one you acquired.>

<Probably does,> I said.  <No way to know for sure unless we go down to the shelter.>

<Brilliant idea.> Her sarcasm was so thick, I could smell it.  <A couple of strays heading into the shelter.>

<Alright, alright.  Eh, Cassie said to stay close anyway.>

I don’t think there was a single moment of being a dog that I didn’t enjoy.  Rachel and I played chase.  We found an old shoe and played tug of war.  We chased a squirrel, but he got away from us.  We wrestled.  I completely owned Rachel at first.  I’d had experience fighting while hogtied, but she was used to having human arms to wrestle with.  It didn’t take her long to figure out how to use the dog, and then it was a fair fight.  I was almost twice her size, but she still held her own.

We practiced our thought-speak.  Compared to Aximili and Visser Three, our thought-speak was hollow.  It had no gravitas, nothing extra packaged with it.  It was just words.  Sort of like a captioned message.  I heard Rachel’s voice in my head, I kind of saw the words she wanted me to hear.  It was very clear, but it didn’t have anything else.  No emotions.  No further understanding.  Just words.

After what seemed like only a few minutes, I heard a buzzer go off several blocks away.  <That’s Cassie,> I said. 

<We better get back.> Rachel and I ran back home as quickly as we could.  We didn’t stop playing the entire way there.  It was a race!  And there weren’t any rules.  You know those races on kids shows where the bad guy cheats by pushing, shoving, and hitting?  Well, Rachel was the bad guy.  So was I.  It was a race, but it was also time to bite and wrestle.  We fought all on the way back home, like a young brother and sister arguing over who gets to ride shotgun.

When we got home, we found Cassie had made breakfast.  Waffles, bacon, eggs, coffee, the works.  We ate our fill, and that seemed to restore our energy for more morphing practice.  We didn’t spend quite as long in the other morphs as we did in dog, but we gave them each a go.  We both tried lizard and squirrel.  I went raccoon, and Rachel went cat.  Boy was that a bad idea to do at the same time!

Earlier, when we had both morphed dog, it was easy to trigger the “friend” response.  That’s a lot harder for cats, and nearly impossible for raccoons.  This time, Cassie had to separate us.  Unfortunately she got clawed up pretty bad.

“Now I know why your neighbor hates raccoons so much,” she joked.

Practice went into the early afternoon, at which point Rachel had to leave.  She had a workout scheduled at her MMA gym.  I’d felt like I already got my workout in.  I’d worked out my morphing muscles.  At the time, I wondered how I’d fit yet another exercise into my schedule.  I didn’t realize how much time I’d use it.

Cassie and I finally decided to dig into the bag Aximili had given us.  It was Monday afternoon already.  We’d been given the bag Friday night.  Rachel was right, I needed to stop procrastinating.  Cassie held up the bag.  “Should we take everything out and try to organize it, or should we just do this grab-bag style?”

“Let’s see it all,” I said.  I didn’t really care one way or the other, but a decision had to be made.  We took out the stuff inside and separated it into piles.  We guessed which items went into which pile.   Our piles were weapons, electronics, and “other”.  The morphing orb stayed in the bag.

In the weapons group, we had five.  There were two pistols and a rifle.  “Shredders,” I said.  Aximili had told us about these.  The pistols looked like hot glue guns, and the rifle actually looked a lot like modern German assault rifles, except without the magazine.  They were extremely light, almost like toys.

Where the Yeerk’s Dracon Beams looked like something out of a recent sci-fi video game, with all sorts of gadgets and doodads around the emitter, the Andalite Shredder looked more like a budget 1970s laser gun.  Cassie and I agreed that we’d go test the Shredders out in the woods next weekend.

There was also a two-foot pole, about an inch around, with a large button and several knobs.  Cassie thought it looked like a cross between a cattle-prod and a lightsaber.  I thought it looked like a pipe bomb.  We decided not to play with it in the house.

The last weapon looked like a flashlight, with a reflex sight and some extra buttons.  It didn’t trigger any memories of what Aximili had told us in his final moments.  Like the prod-lightsaber thing, we chose not to figure out exactly what it was until we could test it in a safer place.  You know, somewhere we couldn’t burn down the house.

In the computer corner, we had a four odd-looking doodads.  There was something that looked like a cross between a satellite dish and a conch shell.  Next to that was large plastic box shaped like a jewel, with small holes in every side.  There was also a piece of headgear with several sensors on it.  Looking at it, you wouldn’t be able to tell if it was designed for Andalites or Humans.

The last thing in the computer pile was a large two-sectioned slab of metal.  One side was shaped like a Frisbee with a dent in the middle; the other side was squared off, with a single square button on top.  I pushed the button, and a hologram appeared in the middle of our living room.  The hologram was maybe three feet high.  There were four Andalites pictured in the center of the hologram, and alien text around them.  When I focused on the text, it got bigger.  The computer seemed to work off my thoughts, but I still couldn’t use it.  I couldn’t read the language.  When I took my hand off the button, the hologram disappeared.

The last pile didn’t have much that was useful to us, but it was still pretty cool.  There was a set of hexagonal playing cards with the same alien language on them, along with a set of alien dice.  There was a nail file. I’m not sure if it was for the Andalites’ hooves or tail blades, but it seemed too big for us to use.  We had holsters for the Shredder pistols.  There were a few knickknacks, which just looked like mementos to me.

“Well, the Shredders might be useful,” I said.  “But I’m afraid to touch the other weapons, and I don’t know how those computers work.”

“Think you can figure out the Morphing orb?” Cassie asked.

“Maybe,” I said.  “Only one way to try it out.  Would you be willing to try it?”

“You probably don’t know how any of these games work, either,” she said.

“No, but you didn’t answer my question.”

Before she could say “no”, my phone buzzed.  It was on the kitchen counter.  Cassie was closer.  She went to grab it.  “It’s Marco,” she said.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

Marco’s boss noticed that Mike hadn’t shown up for work.  He was supposed to finish a project over the weekend, so his boss was desperate to find him.  His calls all went to voicemail, texts came back undeliverable.  Marco couldn’t exactly say that he was nearly decapitated by a good alien and then vaporized by a group of evil aliens, all because he was under the control of the evil aliens.  So, Marco lied and said he had no idea where his coworker was.  Marco’s job was to go to Mike’s house and see if he was there.

This was the lead I had been hoping for; some starting point we could use to track down the Yeerks.  His car was still in the shop, so he needed a ride.  Since it was just going to be the two of us, I picked him up in my silver Mustang.

“I hope you know this doesn’t mean I’m joining the team,” Marco said.  “I just thought this would help you.” 

“I won’t give you another sales pitch, then,” I said.  I was never a recruiter, anyway.

He had given me Mike’s address.  His bosses thought we were checking on him.  Really, we were just going to break into the house and see if there was anything that could point me, Rachel, and Tobias to where we should go next.  “Why are you going with me, though?”

“Gets me out of work for a few hours,” he said smugly.

I wished Rachel or Tobias had come with me.  Rachel had a group workout at her gym, and Tobias had school.  Both would be missed.  Later on, when they were both free, I’d be busy at work.  I wanted them to come so they could see what kinds of things we’d need to do.  A simple break-and-enter with nobody around would be a good way for them to start.

I pulled onto Mike’s street.  A blonde chick in a red Lexus sport car pulled into Mike’s driveway.  “That looks like Barb’s car,” Marco said.

“It’s a chick car.  Do you know if Mike had a wife or a girlfriend?”  I slowed down just a bit.  Not enough for the mystery driver to notice us, but enough we could get a good look at what was going on.

Marco thought for a second.  “Not that I knew of.  He was fairly private.  But I’d think a Controller wouldn’t have time for all that.”

“Unless he wanted to keep up appearances,” I said.  We passed by the Lexus just as the driver was getting out.

Marco sunk low into his seat.  “That _is_ Barbara!” he whispered.   “The fuck is she doing here?”

“I’ve got two possibilities, and they both suck.”

“Is she fucking around on me?” Marco asked.

“That’s one option,” I said.  I glanced in my rearview mirror.  “But if she were, why is she using a credit card to break into his house?”

“Jess doesn’t even know how to do that,” Marco said.  I knew he was smart, so he must not have wanted to put the pieces together.  I had to put them together for him.

“A Yeerk might,” I said solemnly.

“No way Barb is one of those!” Marco yelled at me.  I drove a ways around the block and pulled over.  “That’s my wife you’re talking about.  I’d know if something was up!”

“So you’d rather she was screwing your buddy?” I asked.

“No!  What the hell is wrong with you?  You’re a piece of shit, Jake.  I bet you talked her into coming here so you could try and get me to sign up with you.  You’re sick.  You’re fucked up in the head.  Why?”

“I didn’t do this, Marco.”  I hoped he knew I was telling the truth.

“Jake…what do I do?”

“Don’t do anything rash,” I said.  “You’re smart, right?  Take some time to process this.  But right now, we’ve gotta move.  After I morph, I need you to switch spots with me and drive me close.  Drop me off at Mike’s house.  I’ll go in and see what’s going on.  While I’m in there, drive around the block and park somewhere you won’t be seen.  Leave the car running.  Blast some metal.  Cry.  Scream.  Yell.  Try not to draw too much attention to yourself.  I’ll come find you when I’m done.”

“Okay,” Marco agreed.  I could tell he was holding back tears.  I knew they’d come as soon as I was out of sight.

I decided the best thing to sneak in on Barbara would be the lizard.  It was the smallest morph I had.  It would be easier to get inside than the squirrel.   Easier to hide while I was in there, too.  It occurred to me that Marco had never seen a morph before.  _Boy is he in for a surprise_ , I thought.

Just like with the dog and the cat, the morph wasn’t exactly pretty.  This time, it started with my eyes and my hands.  Eyes splayed out wide to the sides of my head.  At the same time, my fingers stretched wide like a guitarist’s hands.  My skin itched.  Not quite a burning itch, but if I had fingernails left I would have been tempted to scratch.  I watched the skin on my arms melt together into scales. 

My back itched worse than everything else.  The scales on my back were harder than on my soft underside.  My fingers grew different scales, ones designed to help me go up and down walls.  My feet started to change.  My shoes grew really tight.  I was about to stop the morph and take them off when suddenly they weren’t even there anymore.  My feet flew out of my shoes like a cartoon character who’d just taken a massive uppercut, but at the same time, I was falling.

No, not falling.  I was shrinking.  This was faster than the cat shrunk.  I had more to go.  As I shrunk, my spine shrunk less, which meant it grew relative to the rest of my body.  I was still the size of a terrier when my tail grew in.  My street clothes were draped over me like a sleeping bag.  I’d been smart enough to wear my morphing clothes underneath.  _Maybe next time I strip down to my morphing suit first_ , I thought.

I was still the size of a kitten, with a human head and peach scales, but otherwise I was already a green anole.  I continued to shrink.  My ears disappeared, leaving only tiny holes on the sides of my head.  My jaw shot out like a rocket.  My teeth shrunk just as fast.   I almost gagged on my tongue as it grew into a monstrosity.  I was reminded of the Ton-Tongue Toffee from Harry Potter.  It felt like my tongue was three feet long inside my mouth. 

I was buried under my clothes.  My skin changed in a quick flash, like a fancy PowerPoint transition.  Oh god I hated those.  Any presentation with transitions meant it was that much longer before a meeting was over.  <You can look now,> I said.  Marco had turned away in disgust very early on in the morph.

“Hey, you talk like Aximili did,” he said.  “Except more hollow.”

<Can you just get my clothes off me?>

“Hey, I’m married.”  Suddenly, I could see him.  He threw my shirt in the backseat.  The lizard didn’t like this at all.  The lizard liked to be hidden.  It didn’t matter if it was under a rock, in the crack of a wall, or even under some dirty clothes, the lizard didn’t want to be out in the open.  That’s how predators get you.

<Let’s just trade places and you can get me over there,> I said.  I climbed out of the seat and sat next to the gearshift.  It was like a statue in the middle of a city square.

Marco started to slide over, but looked at me.  I guess he didn’t want to accidentally crush me, so he got out and walked around to get back to the driver’s seat.  He threw my pants and shoes into the back, and then climbed in himself.

“This is so weird,” he said.  “You’re a lizard.  Hey, you’re a lizard Jakey.”

<Just drive.>

“You’re no fun,” he complained.  He drove me back around the block to Mike’s house and rolled down his window.  I walked over him to get to the door.  His legs were like massive denim-covered redwood trees.  He scooped me up in his mattress-sized hand and held me out the window.  The lizard didn’t like being picked up, but I had practiced this morph with Cassie.  I told the lizard that this wasn’t a predator.  My heart was still thumping, but at least the brain wasn’t screaming _RUN! RUN! RUN!_

I looked down.  I was only a foot or so off the ground, but it seemed like a football field.  Marco let go, but I held onto his hand.  This time, it wasn’t the lizard’s instincts.  It was mine.  I wasn’t afraid of heights.  I’d done bungee jumps and HALO jumps.  I loved roller coasters and the Extreme Scream.  I even did the ride where you freefall hundreds of feet into a safety net.  I’ve repelled down walls to sneak into buildings.  But in all of those cases, I had a rope, a net, or a parachute.  I had something other than the ground to break the fall.

“Are you going to go?” Marco asked.

I didn’t want to seem afraid, so I let go.  I traveled that whole football field in a fraction of a second.  It was the fastest I’d ever fallen!  But when I hit the ground, it felt like a giant pillow.  The asphalt felt nice.  It was warm; a good place for a nap.  The lizard started to soak in the sun.  _No_ , I thought.  _We have a mission._   The lizard didn’t want to move.  _Hide_ , I thought.  _Hide inside._   The lizard brain understood that.  I pointed myself towards the house and started to run.

Lizards aren’t that fast.  I could run a few miles an hour, tops.  But I was less than a foot long from snout to vent.  I felt like I was running at highway speeds.  I ran towards the sidewalk.  It looked like the brick wall of a school gym to me.  I worried about running headfirst into it, but the lizard wasn’t afraid at all.  When I reached the wall, suddenly I was looking at the sky.  A second later, I was looking straight ahead again.  I was on the sidewalk.

Cats and dogs rely more on smell and hearing to experience the world around them.  Cat’s eyes are based on night vision, and both see movement better than humans do, but they don’t have quite the vision humans have.  The lizard was the other way around.  My hearing was okay.  My smell was a bit better than a human, but not quite as good as the cat and nowhere near the dog.  But my vision was awesome!

I could see in practically every direction at once.  My eyes were further wide, which let me see anything that wasn’t directly behind me or above me.  I could see most of the sky, a lot of sidewalk, and everything in between.  And the colors!  I could see so much more than a human could.  It’s like humans had the cheap 4-box-set of crayons to work with, and I had the 128-box premium set.  Oh, it was glorious!

I zipped past the grass.  The lizard wanted to check for bugs in the grass, but I pushed forward.  I had to get into the house.   I climbed up onto the porch.  Barbara had left the door cracked open.  _Good,_ I thought.  _I don’t have to find a vent._  

I thought about just walking in through the door, but the lizard had another idea.  I climbed up the column to get to the awning.  The lizard wanted to go across the portico and in through the top of the door.  On the way up, I noticed a glimmer in the sun.  A spiderweb!  I wanted to move away, but again, the lizard had another idea, and again the lizard’s brain beat me.

An orb weaver hung over the bushes, supported between the porch and the side wall of the house.  The spider sat just close enough to the column I was on for my lizard tongue to reach it.  Before I could try to stop it, my jaws opened wide, like Arnold Vosloo from The Mummy.  My tongue flicked out like it was shot out of a cannon, latched onto the spider, and sucked it back into my mouth.

The spider didn’t even have a chance to try and wriggle away.  My jaws clamped shut on it and crushed it in an instant.  I felt juices spray into my mouth, like when you bite into plump grape.  Only this grape was the size of a basketball.  In one gulp, the spider went down my lizard gullet and into my gut.

This wasn’t an entirely new experience for me.  I’d eaten spiders several times before.  Once as a dare when I was a kid.  Again on a dare when I was drunk.  In Cambodia, I had fried spiders, although I’m pretty sure that was just a game of “let’s see what we can make the white person eat.”  There were a couple times out in the sticks where I ate them because I was hungry enough. 

But I’d never eaten a spider the size of a turkey before!   The lizard didn’t have a gag reflex.  Once the spider was on its way down, there was no stopping it.  I thought about taking a second to freak out about it.  I was distracted when I heard a cell phone ring.

“Hang on, let me shut the door.”  The voice was coming from inside the house.  _Barbara_.  I only had a moment to get in before the door would shut, and I’d have to climb all over the house to find a way in.  By the time I got in, she’d probably be off the phone.  Whatever she was going to say was sensitive enough she needed some privacy.  I didn’t want to miss it.

The lizard, on the other hand, had a meal to digest.  Digestion takes energy.  Moving takes energy.  _Hide_ , I thought again.  _Hide inside so we can settle in_.  The lizard’s brain accepted that.  I crawled along the porch’s ceiling, and down the wall towards the door.  I could hear Barbara’s footsteps getting closer.  I could feel the vibrations from each footfall as she approached the door. 

I had just got my front feet on the door, when I saw a hand on the doorknob.  _Hurry_ , I urged myself.  I got inside just as the door slammed shut.  I felt a strange sensation in my tail.  I turned my head a bit and looked back.  Most of my tail was gone!  It didn’t even hurt.  It wasn’t torn off or ripped off.  I just let it go like a reflex.

Could you imagine if you were handcuffed by the cops to just have your hands fall off your body?  If someone tied your shoelaces together, to just jump off your feet?  Well, to the lizard, it was more like taking off gloves.  I was a bit nose-heavy now, but other than that I was fine. 

My tail fell outside the door.  Barbara didn’t notice.  Nor did she bother to look up.  _Not that it matters if she sees me,_ I thought.  _I’m a lizard._

“I’m secure, now.  I’m at the house.  What are my orders, Sub-Visser One-Nine-Nine?”  There was a brief pause.  “I’m sorry.  What do you want me to do, Mr. Chapman?”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

I could have sworn I’d heard that name before.  Chapman.  _It’s not that uncommon_ , I thought.  _Even if I remember a Chapman, it’s probably the wrong one._

If I had gone squirrel, I might have been able to hear the other side of the conversation, too, but all I could hear was Barbara.

“Yeah…uh huh…no…yep…sure…”  This seemed to go on for ages.  Finally, she had something to say.  “I’ll look for it now.  When I find it, do you want me to bring it to you, or directly to Visser Three?  Okay.  I’ll SMS you when I find it…text, sorry.  I’ll text you when I find it.”

_I wonder if she’s new.  She doesn’t sound used to talking like a real person._

Barbara started searching the house.  I followed her from the entry hall to the living room.  She started pulling up couch cushions and digging into drawers.  She didn’t do the cliché bit you see in TV shows where the searchers start cutting up the furniture and breaking down walls.  _She doesn’t want it to look like the place has been searched_ , I thought.  Either that, or she was just really bad at her job.

 _What time should I worry about the morphing time limit?_ There was a large clock in the living room.  One-forty-three.  If I were to guess, I’d been in morph for about ten minutes.  To be safe, I rounded down to one-thirty.  _If she doesn’t find it by three o’clock, I need to find a way out of here._

She started into the dining room, but stopped when her phone rang again.  I could read the name David on the screen.  “Hey babe…I had fun the other night, too…sure, I can meet you in a couple hours…no, my husband’s at work, but he’ll be home before we’re done…same bar as last time…looking forward to it!”

I thought about thought-speaking Marco to let him know what’s up, but decided against it.  I wasn’t sure if thought-speak could reach that far.  I also wasn’t sure how Marco would react.  If I told him that not only was I 100% sure his wife was a Controller, I was about 90% sure that she was cheating on him, I was about halfway sure he’d drive the Mustang through the house to try and run her over.  I couldn’t do that to my car (not to mention that it would completely screw my chances of finding out who Chapman is).

She continued into the dining room.  I waited a bit before following after her.  I was in the corner where the wall met the ceiling.  I figured humans rarely look up, so I was safest up here.  My feet were latched onto the wall like suction cups.  If you tried to pry me off the wall, you’d probably rip me in half before you broke my grip.  The lizard brain knew how to turn off the suction, making it easy to walk along the wall. 

The textured bumps in the drywall were like sidewalks or parking stops.  They were just big enough to pay attention to, but not so much they got in the way.  It was hard for me to tell up from down or which way sideways should be, but luckily I was just the navigator.  The lizard was driving.

As soon as I heard Barbara milling about in the dining room, I followed her in.  She was all the way on the other corner of the room.  It seemed like half a mile to her, but I could clearly see her.  There wasn’t much in the room to check.  She looked under the table and the chairs, and then was off to the kitchen.  Once again, I waited a bit before I followed her in.

I glanced at the clock on the oven.  2:15.  She’d spent quite a bit of time looking through the living room.   Judging by the size of the house, I guessed it had 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a family room we still needed to search.  If she’d basically searched one room, there was no way we’d get all the way through the house by 3:30, when I’d be stuck as a lizard.  Definitely not by 3:00, when I wanted to be out of there.

Barbara didn’t say anything while she searched the kitchen.  I don’t know if I was expecting her to sing, to mumble to herself, or what, but this was just an eerie silence.  Every once in a while, her face would twitch.  She’d lose her focus and smile, or I’d see her brow furrow and jaw clench for a moment. 

I wondered what this was like for Barbara; the real Barbara.  I’ve seen plenty of possessions on TV.  Sometimes the possessed wakes up afterwards with no memory of what happened.  Was Barbara asleep in there?  Did the Yeerk have her in some sort of dream world?  Or could she see everything?  Did she know her Yeerk made her cheat on Marco?

She took her time in the kitchen.  I’d done surveillance work before, so I was used to waiting patiently.  The lizard was focused on sitting still and digesting the spider, so I wasn’t fighting any instincts.  Still, I couldn’t help but keep glancing at the clock.

2:30.   Barbara had searched through all the cabinets, and hadn’t seen what she was looking for.  Now she was digging in the pantry. 

2:40.  She’d put everything back in the pantry, and started looking through the fridge.

2:55.  The fridge and the freezer didn’t have what she was looking for.  She moved on from the kitchen.  I followed her closer this time.  She headed down the main hall, and I wasn’t sure where she was going next.  This new body was so tiny that I made no sound at all as I crawled down the wall, over the doorframe, and back up to the crack near the ceiling.

I was starting to get worried.  I was approaching the two-hour limit, and she still had more than half the house to go.  I started to go through my options.  I could go into the other room and de-morph and re-morph, and hope she didn’t hear me.  I could escape, and we could track her later.  I wanted to know what she was looking for, though.  It might give us some clue of what to look for.

We got to the bedroom.  It was in here that I realized something really creepy.  This was a normal house.  If I didn’t know any better, I’d assume she was a normal person that forgot where they put something.  I’d assume she lived here; that this was a normal house.  For the most part, it was well kept, but it was definitely used. 

The bed was made, at least it was before Barbara started digging under the mattress.  There were a handful of dirty clothes on the floor, but the closet wall full.  There were a few dirty dishes in the kitchen.  The carpet looked like it hadn’t been vacuumed for a week.  There were a few specs of dust on the dresser.  I didn’t know how long Mike had been a Controller, but his house looked like a normal person lived here.  It didn’t look like the lair of an alien slaver.

I found a spot in the room where I could watch the alarm clock on the nightstand.  I was starting to get desperate.  She probably wouldn’t even finish with this bedroom before my time was up.  She still had a long ways to go.  She wasn’t working very quick, but she was thorough.  _Maybe I could get Marco to call her and distract her so I can re-morph_ , I thought. 

3:15.  I was just about to see how far I could thought-speak, when her face lit up.  She pulled out what looked like a selfie stick.  There was a big red button on the handle, but instead of a cradle for your phone, the other end had a tiny little disc, almost like a smaller version of the Andalite computer that we’d gotten from Aximili.

She extended the stick and held the button.  A small hologram appeared, just as it had in our house.  She didn’t bother logging in.  Her mission was simply to find the device and bring it back to her superiors.  The Yeerks couldn’t have the police look through the house and find an alien computer.  That would interfere with their secret invasion.

I contemplated trying to steal it, but only for a brief moment.  The computer wouldn’t do me any more good than the Andalite computer.  All stealing the device would do is let the Yeerks realize that there was a resistance to them.  Instead, I waited in the bedroom while she left.  Luckily for me, she didn’t hang around long. 

By the time I de-morphed, it was already 3:23.  _That was close_ , I thought to myself.  I went to call Marco, but realized my phone was in my pants, which were still in my car.  Instead, I opened the window, and morphed squirrel.  This time, the first thing I did was shrink.  Even though I’d morphed small several times already, it still felt like falling.

After that, it was much like morphing cat and dog.  My body shifted around, fur grew, my hands and feet changed, and a tail grew out of my spine.  I had a tail again! 

The squirrel was a little bit bigger than the lizard, but boy did it have energy!  It was like I’d drunk a Big Gulp of espresso and washed it down with a 12-pack of red bull.  I was wired!  I also did NOT want to be inside the house.  Trees and forest?  Good.  Where people live?  Bad!

That was fine for me.  I wanted to leave the house, too.  The squirrel’s senses weren’t much different than mine.   It could see about as well as I could in human form, and it could hear a little bit better.  Still, the room seemed huge.  I felt like I was in a school gym, not the master bedroom of small suburban house. 

I jumped onto the window sill.  It was a good four feet off the ground, but it looked like jumping onto the top of a large hospital.  The sill was just at my vertical limit.  I grabbed the wooden frame with my tiny claws.  It was just like grabbing onto a tree.  Another leap, and I was on top of the open window.  It swayed a little bit under my weight.  I was only a pound or two, but at the end of the window, my weight was enough to swing it out.

I leapt straight out, as hard as I could.  I wasn’t trying to get far away from the house.  I could easily run however far I needed to go.  However, I wanted to shove the window hard enough to shut it.  The window swung back in, but not very fast. 

My little heart was beating like a metal drummer in my chest.  I wasn’t sure if it was the adrenaline, or just how squirrels normally are.  The window slowed down as it got close to the frame.  Luckily for me, it had just enough momentum to swing all the way shut.

<Where are you, Marco?> I asked.  I hoped he was close enough he could hear me.  I still wasn’t sure of the range on thought-speak.  I also didn’t know how far away Marco was.  It took me way too long to realize Marco could respond back with thought-speak.  Barbara had already left, so I figured it was safe for Marco to show his face here again.

<Marco, the coast is clear.  Come pick me up.>  My job was done, and all I had to do is wait.  The squirrel had other ideas.  It didn’t want to be on the ground.  Dogs walk on the ground.  So do other predators.  The trees were much safer.  The squirrel wanted to go into the trees.  I could see the driveway just as easily from up in the branches, so I obliged the squirrel brain.

It didn’t take too long for the Mustang to arrive.  I jumped down to the ground.  <I’m the squirrel,> I said.  He nodded and rolled down the window.  I looked up at the massive car.  It was like a jumbo jet.  The squirrel did _not_ want to jump in, but I urged it to go through the window anyway.  I landed in Marco’s lap.

“Doesn’t this whole thing seem a bit squirrely to you?” Marco asked.  He was a giant.  His voice shook me to my core. 

<Oh god,> I complained.  <You’re worse than Cassie’s Dad.>

Marco laughed.  “That’s the best part of telling a pun, you know: the other person bitching about how bad it was.  So what’d you learn?”

I made a mental note not to give him the satisfaction next time.  <I’m going to demorph.>  He looked away.  He’d seen me morph once.  He didn’t want to see it again.

“Let me know when you’re done,” he said. 

A few minutes later, I was Jake again.  I slipped on my clothes in the backseat.  By habit, I patted each pocket to make sure I had everything.  Phone, pens, wallet, keys, handgun, pocket knife, flashlight.  Yep, I was all set.  “Am I taking you back to work?”

“Oh crap, I totally forgot about work,” Marco said.  “Although, my boss hasn’t called me, so maybe they don’t miss me.”

“Should you call in?” I asked.

“Nah.  If they haven’t called me, I don’t want to let them know I’m missing.”

“Fair enough,” I said.  “So, can you get out of my seat?”

“Oh, right.”  This time, he slid over the center console to get to the passenger seat. 

I reclined the driver seat and climbed in front.  “I have bad news, and I have worse news.  You remember how the two options we had are that Barbara is a Controller, or that she’s cheating on you?”

“Yeah?” Marco asked.

“Turns out it’s both,” I said.

“Fucking goddamn piece of shit bitch whore!”  I hadn’t heard swearing that good since I was in Ranger school.

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think it’s her, it’s the Yeerk.”

“That doesn’t make it any better!”  Marco asked.  “That’s even worse.  She’s not just a slave.  She’s a sex slave.  Why would a Yeerk even care?”

“It seemed manipulative,” I said.  “Maybe she’s trying to lure this guy into becoming a Controller?  Maybe the Yeerks want leverage over him for some reason?”

“I’m going to kill that Yeerk,” Marco said.  “I’m going to lock Barb up until that Yeerk starves to death.  Then I’m going to find this guy and kill him.  What’s his name?”  Marco had streaks on his cheeks from where tears had been, but there were no tears now.  Sadness had been replaced by rage. 

“I think it was David.  But think about what you’re saying.  You free Barbara.  What’s your next move?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“The Yeerks know who she is.  If she’s freed, the Yeerks will want her back, or want her dead.  She’s a witness.  She knows about the Yeerks.  So it won’t be long until she’s either got another Yeerk in her head, or a bullet in her head.  Can she live off the grid?”

“I don’t think so,” Marco said.  He was starting to calm down.  I could still hear the seething hatred in his voice, but his rage was tempered.  Not gone, just held back.  “Besides, if I free her, the Yeerks will probably link it back to me.  Who else would want to free her?  My whole family will have to go on the run.  I don’t know how to do that, either.”

“I’m sorry, Marco.  I’ve had to tell people their husband or their son was dead.  I’ve never had to tell someone their spouse would be better off dead.”

Marco didn’t respond for a long time.  I got the feeling he didn’t want me to talk, either.  We drove in silence.  I could swear I heard the gears turning in his head the whole time.  We were a block away from his office building when he finally spoke up. 

“Jake…I’m in.  I’m going to do everything I said.  I’m going to free Barbara.  I’m going to keep Angelina safe.  I’m probably going to kill David.  But not right now.  The timing isn’t right.  I’m going to make it happen, and when I do, it’ll work.”

“You’re in?”  I wanted to make sure I understood exactly what he meant.  “As in, you want to join the war?”

“Yes.  Give me the morphing power.  Make me an animal-morpher, or Animorph, or whatever you guys are called.  Let me fight the Yeerks with you.”

“Tell me what time you get off work,” I said.  “I’ll give you a ride back to my place again, and we’ll see if we can’t make you an Animorph.  Nice name, by the way.  I think we’ll use it.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

Somehow (and I don’t know how) everyone got to my place at the same time.  Cassie was unlocking the door on the way home from the zoo when I pulled into the driveway.  Before I got in the house, Marco’s Uber dropped him off, Rachel drove up, and a hawk landed in my yard.  <Sup?> Yep, the hawk was Tobias.

Tobias waddled into the house to de-morph.  The rest of us met inside.  Tobias had figured that he could morph skintight clothes.  He was wearing nothing but some ratty old boxers that’d he probably fit into when he was 12 or 13.  I let him borrow some clothes, but they didn’t fit at all.  Rachel suggested she take him shopping.  I’ve never seen a teenage boy so excited about clothes shopping before.

I hadn’t had a chance yet to talk with Cassie about what happened at Mike’s house, let alone the others.  On the one hand, I was glad.  I didn’t want to have to explain this several times over.  On the other hand, I wished I’d been able to run this all by Cassie first.  She sees things differently than I do.  I’ve learned over the past dozen or so years that when I have to deal with people, Cassie is the best resource I have at keeping me from acting like an ass.

“Marco’s back,” Rachel said.  She sounded a little bit surprised.  I couldn’t tell if she was excited or disappointed at his return.  At the very least, she wanted to bring up the elephant in the room before it became an elephant.

“His boss dragged him back,” I said.  “Remember his coworker that was impaled?  His boss asked Marco to find him.”

“We know where he is, or was,” Tobias said.  “What did you hope to get?”

“We wanted a lead,” I replied.

“Did you find one?” Rachel asked.  I glanced at Marco.  He met my gaze.  I wasn’t sure how much he wanted me to say, or how much I had to say even if he didn’t want me to.  Marco gave me a slight nod, then took a deep breath.  I didn’t have to say anything.  Marco was going to do that for me.

Before he spoke, Marco let out a long sigh through pursed lips.  He took another breath.  “we found a lot.  My wife, Barb, is a Controller.  The Yeerk is using her body like a whore to attract other people to become Controllers.  Right now she’s after some guy named David.”

“Did you get a last name?” Cassie asked.

“No,” I said.  “Just ‘David’.”

“That’s a big help,” Rachel said.  Her sarcasm was palpable.

“She reports to a sub-visser named Chapman,” I added.  “I’m guessing that’s like a junior-grade officer, maybe an NCO.  She found a computer, kind of like a smaller version of what Aximili gave us.  She was going to get that to Chapman or Visser Three.”

Rachel looked at me like I was an idiot.  “You didn’t grab it from her?”

I gave her the same look.  “And expose myself?”

Tobias giggled.  Marco said, “I’d rather you not expose yourself to my wife, thanks.”

“That’s not what I meant!”  Everyone else was laughing, though.  I figured I’d join in a bit.  I can’t get mad at them for a joke I walked right into.

“So, what’s next?” Tobias asked.  He was eager to help, but had no direction to go.

“We need to find Chapman,” Rachel said.  “He seems to be important.”

“We need to save David!” Cassie exclaimed.

“The dude that’s fucking my wife?” Marco asked.

“He probably doesn’t know she’s married,” Cassie said.  “Either way, does he deserve to be enslaved just for that?”

Marco hung his head.  I knew it would be a long-shot to save David.  If we could find out who he was or why the Yeerks wanted him, that would help, but chances are by the time we got to him, he’d have a slug in his ear.  Even if we did get to him in time, we had the same problem as with Marco’s wife:  what to do with him?

“We’re going to have a hard time saving people until we can ensure their safety,” I said.  “The Yeerks aren’t going to want witnesses.  If we keep him from being infested, we’ll still ruin his life.”

“What if we save him without him finding out about the Yeerks?”  Tobias made a good point.  I hadn’t thought of that.  This doesn’t help us save Barbara for Marco, but it was an idea to keep in mind as we found more Yeerk targets of interest.

“Even so, what are the chances we find the right ‘David’ before he’s taken?” I asked.  Nobody seemed to have an answer.  “But, I think Cassie and Rachel are both right.  If we’re going to fight this war, we need to hurt the Yeerks, both physically and logistically.  If something is important to them, it needs to be important to us.  I think both a sub-Visser and a human they’re specifically targeting are important.”

“So who do we go after?” Rachel asked.

“We go after Barbara,” I said.  “She’s our lead on both of them.  We can’t find Chapman or David without her.  So we follow her until she can lead us to them.”

“How do we do that?” Rachel asked.  This time, she wasn’t being obstinate.  It was a genuine question.

“Birds,” Tobias said.  “They have great vision, they can fly over things so we can stay above them the whole time.”

“People rarely look up,” I added.  “That’s what I did to spy on Barbara.  The only problem now is how do we do this?  Rachel and Tobias are busy in the mornings.  I’m busy in the afternoon.  Marco wants to join, but I take it you’re busy in the daytime?”

Rachel started to say something, but I held up my hand to stop her.  I wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but I guessed whatever it was, it wasn’t constructive.

“I’m going to bring these bastards down,” Marco said.  “I have my reasons.  You probably know them now.  My goal is the same as it was before – protect my family.”

“You don’t need to convince us,” Rachel said.

“I’m happy to have another person on the team,” Tobias agreed.

I said, “That still leaves us with a problem, though.  Even if we add Marco, I’m on my own for the day shift.  Unless Tobias ditches school, or Rachel changes her workout schedule.  Marco?  Think you can work nights?” 

Marco thought about it for a second.  “I don’t think I should be spying on my wife.”

“You’d feel wrong doing it?” Cassie asked.

“No.”  Marco said.  “No, I just don’t want to snap and ruin the mission.”

“Can you handle the day shift by yourself?” Rachel asked.

“For an hour at a time, yeah.  But I’ll need to de-morph and re-morph.  Surveillance will work best in pairs.  If they _do_ notice us, better to see different birds than the same bird all day.  They fight the Andalites, so they know how morphing works.  Even if they think all the Andalites are dead, all it takes is one thing out of the ordinary for them to start to worry again.”

“So you need another set of eyes that works the evening shift,” Cassie said.  I could already tell what she was thinking.  She just didn’t want to say it.  She didn’t process things like Marco had been doing.  If Marco waited to say something, it’s because he was weighing the possibilities, like a master chess player. 

Cassie, on the other hand, was firm in her convictions.   She tended to go with her gut, and that worked really well for her.  If she was taking her time to answer, it’s not because she was weighing the options.  It’s because her gut made a decision that her mind doesn’t like.  “If you need me to do the day shift with you, I’ll join too.”

“I wasn’t trying to push you into it,” I said.  “I was just presenting the logistical issues with our plan.”  I was being honest.  I didn’t want Cassie to join the team, for the same reason Marco and I agreed not to free his wife just yet.  Cassie knew how to defend herself, but she wasn’t a fighter.  Besides, I didn’t want her in danger.

“Oh, so you beg me to join, but you want to keep your wife safe?” Marco asked.

“What would you do in my shoes?” I asked.  He didn’t have anything to say to that.  He was married, too.  He had to understand that my priorities were Cassie, then me, then everyone else.  

“Do you even know how to use the morphing orb?” Tobias asked.  “If we can’t, then it doesn’t matter.”

This time, it was me that took some time to answer.  “Let’s give it a try.  If it doesn’t work, we can come up with a new plan.  If it does work, then we didn’t waste time on a new plan.”

“Sounds good,” Marco said.

I went and got Aximili’s pack from my gun safe.  It sat on the floor, between my rifles, my shotguns, a couple .22s, and the Shredder rifle.  I still wasn’t used to having a laser gun in my gun safe, but it was kind of cool.   I was a huge war nerd growing up.  That played a big part in my joining the Army in the first place.  But I also liked science fiction, especially action.  Marvel, DC, Star Trek, Star Wars, I loved them all.  I never thought I’d have a ray gun of my own, but there I was, with one in my safe.

I brought the pack out into the living room.  I pulled out the pale blue orb that Aximili had used to give us the morphing power.  As soon as I touched it, the orb started to glow.  I could feel it vibrating my hands.  It wasn’t like a PlayStation controller.  The orb itself wasn’t vibrating.  It was perfectly still, but it radiated a power that shook me like a small earthquake.

“How does it work?” Cassie asked.

“I’m guessing about the same as the computer,” I replied.  “Which means, NFI.”

“What’s NFI?” Tobias asked.

“No Fucking Idea,” Marco said.

“Well if you don’t have any idea, why’d you answer?” Rachel asked.  She cocked one eyebrow at him. 

“Does this do anything more than give people morphing ability?” Tobias asked.  I don’t know if he interrupted Rachel and Marco on purpose, but I was glad he brought us back on topic.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Then it’s probably got 2 buttons,” Marco said.  “An off-on switch and a ‘go’ switch.”

“But there’s no buttons on it,” Rachel said.  “It’s just a ball.”

“Maybe it’s like the computer,” Cassie suggested.  “You said it worked from your thoughts.  Maybe that’s how you have to use it.  With your mind.”

 _On_ I said.  I power rise in the device, but it didn’t change shape like it had when Aximili gave us the morphing power.  It did glow a bit brighter.  Marco was wrong, there was a third switch.  Somehow, once the machine was on, I knew what to do.  It gave me a prompt.  It didn’t come out and ask me “how many people do you need to morph?”  But I knew that was the answer I needed.  Like the machine planted the question in my head.

 _Two_ I thought.  The machine whirred to life.  I could feel it vibrating against my hand now.  Just like how my skin melted into scales when I morphed lizard, the device seemed to melt and reshape itself.  This time, it wasn’t a cube, like when I received my morphing power.  This time, it was a three-sided pyramid.  I held my hand out, the morphing device held in my palm.  “Ok guys, I think I got it.”

Marco and Cassie both sat down next to me.  They slowly held their hands out to touch the device.  They both realized this was the point of no return.  Once they get their morphing powers, they were committed to the cause.  Well, Cassie was already committed, but this was like going from being a Big Sister to adopting a kid.

Their hands both reached the device at the same time.  Marco had short, black hair, but it stood up like it was spiked.  The hair on his arms stood straight up as well.  It was almost as if he was morphing a porcupine already.  Cassie’s hair stood out, too, but her curls looked more like pieces of Fusilli stuck into her head.

 _Go_ I thought.  The orb flashed a brilliant blue that lit up the whole room for just a fraction of a second, then turned off.  Marco and Cassie jolted back, like they’d just touched a hot stove.  “Are you two okay?” Rachel asked.

“That stung a bit,” Marco said.

“I’m fine,” Cassie replied.  “But…does it work?  That’s the question.”

“Only one way to find out,” I said.  I started morphing into the kitten again.  Tobias was the only one who hadn’t seen someone else morph.  Everyone else was smart enough to look away.  But Tobias didn’t seem repulsed by my shapeless, ugly body.  He was fascinated.  Transfixed.  Like he couldn’t look away if he tried.

“Jake, you know we can’t acquire someone who’s already in morph,” he reminded me.

<That’s not what I was thinking,> I said.

“Whoa, is that what thought-speak sounds like?” Tobias asked. 

“You need to hang out with us more,” Rachel said.  “You’ve missed all the fun.”

<Let me outside,> I said.  <I’ll be right back.> Cassie opened the door, and I darted out.  I hadn’t morphed cat since the first time I tried morphing, but it was the perfect morph for what I needed to do.  I trotted out across the lawn and into the bushes.  Once again, I was king of the world, only this world was a lot bigger than inside was, and it had a lot more toys for me to play with.

That’s all that the other animals were.  If they were bigger than me, then they were my servant.  Parts of them might be toys.  Dogs had floppy ears that would be fun to play with.  Their tails moved, and you know how much cats love movement.  But there were other animals that were toys in and of themselves.  Rats, mice, small birds.  All of them were just perfect little toys, and all of them loved to hide in the bushes.

To a human, it would have been nearly pitch black in the bushes, but to my cat’s eyes, it was bright as day.  I saw movement, like a string being wiggled across the floor.  It was a mouse’s tail!  I ran after it.  I wiggled through branches and between trunks with the agility of a fighter jet, but to no avail.  The mouse was smaller and didn’t even have to twist through the branches, and he was gone.  I’d failed.

The cat learned faster than I did.  The cat wanted to sit down and just lay in wait, but I was determined to catch a mouse.  I tried and failed again and again, but to no avail.  Finally, I stopped fighting the cat’s instincts and let it take over the hunt.  I lay down in the middle of a bush, and waited.

And waited.

And…waited.

Finally, I saw movement again.  Another stringy tail.  Another mouse!  The cat was excited.  My heartrate, which had slowed down while I rested, jumped back to eleven.  The mouse was too far away, though.  The cat figured it out after the first failure, but it had taken me a while.  This time, I waited.  The mouse inched closer to me. 

It smelled the air.  It backed away a bit.  I could see its ears twitching in the dark.  It was listening for any sound of movement.  Any hint that I was still around.  Eventually, he decided I wasn’t there.  _Good,_ I thought.  _Come to me._   Once again, he inched his way cautiously in my direction.  As soon as he was close enough, I pounced!

I put my paw down hard on the mouse’s tail.  He scrambled to get away.  It reminded me of someone trying to run in an old cartoon, where their legs spin like wheels and peel out before they gain traction and take off.  Only he didn’t get any traction.  The mouse turned around to bite my paw.  Before he could sink his teeth into me, I lunged forward and clamped my jaws around his shoulders.

The mouse kicked and wriggled in my mouth, but there wasn’t anything he could do.  My teeth had sunk in through fur and skin, and rested inside his soft flesh.  The cat had picked the perfect spot to strike.  He couldn’t twist far enough to bring his teeth or any of his claws to bear.  I trotted back inside.

 _Anyone who would question my godhood should see this feat I have achieved_ , I thought as I approached the house.  Being a dog was awesome because of how happy you could be.  Being a cat was awesome because of how awesome you felt. 

<Open up,> I said as I got close to the porch.  The mouse had stopped wriggling in my mouth.  It wasn’t dead.  It just realized that struggling hurt more than laying still.  I could feel its heart beating against my teeth.  That was a new sensation for me.  I’d never eaten anything alive before.  Not that I was eating the mouse.  The cat didn’t exactly have thumbs to hold it with.  But still, I’d never held a living animal with my teeth before.

Cassie opened the door.  I trotted inside with as much swagger as I could muster.  Cats love showing their catches to their human servants, so the cat was pretty thrilled to show Cassie and Marco what it had done.   “So…this is what we’re going to start with?” Marco asked.

<Don’t be ungrateful of this gift I have brought you, peasant,> I said.

“Um…what?” Marco asked.

“The animal’s brain gets in there a bit,” Cassie said, laughing.  “That’s the cat talking.  Shall we do this?”

Marco nodded.  The two of them reached out towards me.  The mouse started freaking out again and tried even harder to get away.  As soon as the two brown hands touched it, the mouse stopped moving.

<I think it’s working!> I said.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

Cassie had taken the mouse outside.  It was hurt, but nothing that wouldn’t heal soon.  Worst case scenario, it fed another animal.  While she threw the mouse outside, I de-morphed.  We thought it best that I not be a cat when Marco and Cassie try out morphing mice.

Marco’s morph went pretty much how all the other morphs went.  He went from a decent looking human to a melting mess of horrors, before he turned into the mouse.

Cassie, on the other hand, was beautiful.  I’m not just saying that because she’s my wife.  Her morph was elegant.  Everyone else seemed to morph parts at random.  You know how when you get a big haircut, and the barber’s only taken a few passes with the clippers, how horrible it looks?  It all comes together in the end, but until it’s done, your hair is an ugly mess.  That’s how morphing usually is.  For Cassie, it was more like her hair just faded from one haircut to another, and it looked good the whole way through.

For Cassie, it started with her fur.  She grew fur all over, and it colored in as it filled in.  There was no awkward point where she had human-colored fur, or where she had mouse-colored skin.  It happened all at once.  While her fur grew, her head changed with it, but not all the way.  She looked like a cartoon mouse, with big ears, a half-mouse, half-human head, gray fur all over, and a still human body.

Then she shrunk.  <Whoa!>  Cassie wasn’t a fan of thrill rides.  I’m sure the falling sensation from shrinking was quite a shock to her.  Her clothes fell around her, but somehow she passed through the neck of her shirt, so we could still see the morph.  I noticed that only her pants and shirt had fallen down, which meant she’d at least morphed her underwear.  This was good news for when she de-morphed.  I didn’t want Marco and Tobias to see my wife naked.

When she was about the size of a small dog, her body started shifting around again.  Where my morph had gone piece by piece, hers happened all at once.  Her arms and legs turned into the mouse’s legs, her nails extended into claws, a tail grew out of her body; all at the same time.  For an instant, she was just an oversized mouse, but then she shrunk again, and shortly after that she was completely mouse.

Cassie had done this in about three and a half minutes.  This was her first time morphing, and it was faster than any morph any of us had done, except when Rachel morphed me. 

“I think you’ve got some special power or something, hon,” I said.

<Why?> she asked.

“You morphed _fast_ ,” Tobias said.

“And you didn’t look like a naked mole-rat while morphing,” Rachel added.

<How do I look?> Marco asked.

“Like a naked mole-rat,” Rachel said.  “Keep going.”

I looked back at Cassie, only she wasn’t there.  “Where’s Cassie?” I asked.

<Running!> she yelled.  I was impressed she even had enough control over herself to thought-speak yet.

“Running where?” I asked.

<Couch!>

I chased after her.  “You have to talk to the mouse’s brain,” I exclaimed.  “You have to convince it to follow _your_ wishes, and not to go on instinct.”

<That’s easy for you to say,> she said. 

“It wasn’t easy for me to do,” I pointed out.  I kept talking to her, and worked with her on controlling the mouse for the first time.  It only took a few minutes to get her to come out of the couch and follow me around the house.

Marco didn’t have as much luck as Cassie.  As soon as the mouse instincts hit him, he had bolted, and he wasn’t answering Rachel and Tobias as they looked for him.  They each had a different way of trying to help.

“You just have to learn to be one with the mouse,” Tobias suggested.

“Marco, answer me right now or I’m going to morph cat and find your ass myself!” Rachel yelled.

However, it was the newest Animorph who managed to get through to him.  <Marco, the mouse is social.  Tell the mouse that we’re part of the family.>

<That worked,> Marco said.  <Oh my goodness, this thing is on edge!  It’s like having every anxiety order at once.>

“Where are you?” I asked.

<In a wall,> Marco replied.  <I’ll try and come out.>  In his panic, he’d gotten into the wall real quick, but it took him a minute to worm his way back out.  We decided to have Marco and Cassie demorph in separate bedrooms.  We brought their clothes to them first, so they could cover up before coming in again.

We then decided it was time to go shopping.  Tobias needed a real morphing outfit.  I’m not sure what he’d been doing to get his clothes back before, but his ratty old underwear wasn’t going to cut it.  Marco and Cassie needed morphing suits, too.

Marco said he felt like Superman wearing his Super Suit under his day clothes.  That was a pretty fun analogy.  Once we all had a morphing suit, it was time to get Marco and Cassie an actual arsenal of morphs.  At the very least, they needed birds, but I wanted them to have something big to morph, as well.  Tobias, Cassie, and I all had dogs we could morph.  Those two needed something with teeth larger than a grain of rice.

Tobias flew back home to go to bed.  We dropped Rachel off at her house, and then Cassie, Marco, and I went to another animal shelter to do some morph shopping.  This one was more on the outskirts of town, and had a bigger wildlife section.  Marco and Cassie both got a blue jay and duck morph.  I decided to pick up the duck as well. 

For something bigger, Marco ended up with a buck deer that had been hit by a car, and Cassie grabbed a horse that had jumped its fence.  I was thinking about grabbing one of those with them, but Cassie pointed out again that we should go to the zoo and get some apex carnivores if we wanted firepower.  She didn’t want me to get too many morphs, for the same reason I told Tobias not to acquire every dog he came across.

 

* * *

 

 

Cassie and I awoke early in the morning.  I knew where Marco lived, and what kind of car his wife drove, so it was easy for us to find her.  Tobias had told us that even though he’d spent several hours total in the hawk morph, he had no clue how to fly.  Instead, he let the bird do the flying, and just told the bird where to go.  Cassie and I tried to follow that advice.

We had tried to morph our smaller birds at first, my crow and her blue jay.  That was a nightmare.  We decided to de-morph and re-morph ducks.  Morphing birds is strange; even more so than morphing anything else I’d done.  I mean, the lizard’s scales were probably weirder than the bird’s feathers, but it was the bones. 

Birds have hollow bones.  That’s how a bird the size of a bobcat can weigh less than a housecat.  Having your bones hollowed out is…just eerie.  You know how your brain feels when you’ve had a few drinks?  Imagine your entire body feeling that deep down to the core.  I was never more grateful for the morphing numbness than I was when I morphed bird.

The ducks got along way better than the other two birds.  <We’re going to have to learn how to use these things together,> Cassie said.  <Unless we only ever want to morph social animals.>

<We will once we get there,> I said.  <While we’re in formation, this is easier.>  We flew together out to Marco’s house, and then found a nice hidden spot to demorph.  The ducks didn’t like being in the thick underbrush.  They liked the sky and the water.  They liked to be able to see their environment, to know if something was coming.

We morphed back into our tree birds.  I still couldn’t get over how good she looked when she morphed.  It was like she was a graceful ballet dancer, and the rest of us were just drunk idiots trying to twerk. 

Cassie seemed to have her blue jay under control, but it was all I could do to keep my crow from trying to bully her away.  Birds are apparently very racist.  However, we weren’t planning to stick super close together, so it wasn’t too big a deal.

Cassie and I picked different trees, and each hopped up and flew.  Tobias was right.  I didn’t know how to fly, but the bird did.  I just looked up at the tree and thought _perch there_ , and the bird brain did the rest.  I was a couple houses down the street from the red Lexus.  Cassie perched a couple houses down the other way.

The plan was simple:  wait until Barbara leaves, and then whichever of us was closer would follow her as the scout.  The other would follow as the spotter.  The scout’s job was to report to the spotter what was going on.  The spotter’s job was to remember what was going on, as well as to keep track of time by peeking in windows and looking at clocks. 

We would figure out how to de-morph and re-morph on the way.  On the one hand, I didn’t want to have to figure out how to catch up to each other after spending several minutes resetting the morphing clock, so any opportunity we could get to reset the timer was a good one.  On the other hand, morphing is incredibly taxing, so I didn’t want to do it anymore than necessary.

<This is nice,> Cassie said from her tree.  <It’s almost like a date.>

<We haven’t had one this week, have we?> I asked.  We usually went out a couple times a week.  There was a while where we had stopped dating entirely. 

I’m not really religious.  When mass was available in the Army, I never really went.  But I always felt more comfortable treating the chaplains like counselors than I did going to the counselors.  I’m not entirely sure why.  Maybe it’s because it didn’t feel clinical.  I wasn’t a patient to them, I was just a person with questions. 

Whatever the case, one of the chaplains had told me never to stop courting my wife.  Too many husbands get complacent once they get married, and that’s what leads to marriages falling apart.  I’d realized I had been failing Cassie, and we talked it over, and made a deal to go on at least one date a week.  At first, it had been a struggle to find the time and sometimes even to find something we wanted to do together.  It took practice.  But in just a year’s time, it was easy.  It was more than easy.

Our deal still stood, at least one date a week, and we did have a scheduled date night, but we did stuff together all the time.  That’s why Cassie had come with me to pick Rachel up from the airport.  Ten years ago, I’d have gone up by myself for some “me” time and then to spend time with my cousin, and Cassie would have found something else to do.

But that night, I didn’t even give it a second thought.  I needed to pick up Rachel, and Cassie was free, so she went with me.  I didn’t need to compartmentalize my chosen family and my blood family.  They were my family.  They were cousins-in-law.  We could all spend time together.

Still, dates weren’t about going out with Rachel or going shopping for Tobias and Marco.  Dates were about us.  The two of us hadn’t been out together, as a couple, since last Friday.  It was already Tuesday.  It’s funny looking back.  Several years ago it was hard for us to find one night a week to date.  Now, we’re only halfway through the week and already missed each other.

<No, we haven’t> Cassie said. 

<Well this shouldn’t count as our date.  This is just us spending time together.  We need an actual date.>

<Are those going to happen anymore?> she asked.  <I mean, except for work, pretty much our whole time has been tied up with this whole Yeerk thing.>

I didn’t say it, but I wondered how much longer even that would last.  I’d been to war before.  It’s not exactly a part-time job.  I’d been lucky.  When I was in, I was just the boot on the ground sent to do the dirty work.  There are hundreds of jobs in the Army, and there were only five of us in our little Animorphs group.  Work may end up being a luxury.

<We can’t stop trying,> I said.  <We may end up doing all sorts of things you never imagined we’d have to do.  We have to take time to make sure we’re still _us_. >

<That I’m me and you’re you, or that we still work as a couple?>

<Yes,> I said.  It was all of that.  I was still scared of Cassie seeing too much of Action Jake.

<There she is!>  Cassie spotted Barbara before I did.  If you didn’t know there was an alien slug in her head, you wouldn’t think there was anything strange about her.  She was dressed like a normal early-20s girl in skinny jeans and a slim-fitting pink hoodie.  She got in her car, started it up, and started looking through Instagram on her phone while she waited for it to warm up.

When she pulled out of her driveway, she reversed towards Cassie, which meant she was coming my direction.  I was the first scout.  <How long have we been in morph?> I asked.

<About fifteen minutes,> Cassie replied.

<I don’t want to risk getting stuck as a little bird.  I think any time we have a safe place to remorph, we need to.  Keep track of the time for me.>

I had enough to worry about with following the red car.  It wasn’t so much that the car itself was hard to track.  I could zip from tree to tree at 60 MPH, much faster than her car was driving on the suburban roads.  The problem was if she turned where I wasn’t expecting it. 

You see, Barbara doesn’t use her blinker.  Now, I don’t know if this was a Yeerk counter-intelligence tactic, or if it was just how Barbara drove before she became a Controller, but it drove me mad!  I’d get in a perfect spot to keep following her and she’d make a turn.  Then I’d have to backtrack and catch up just to have her turn again.  If she bothered to look up, she’d have known in an instant I was following her.  Luckily, Tobias was right.  Humans don’t bother looking up.

Birds, on the other hand, have excellent eyesight.  The time or two that the Lexus did get away from me, I could catch it at the next stop sign or red light.  I hated red lights before I became an Animorph.  I loathe them now.  Birds don’t have traffic.  You think Humans live in a three-dimensional world, but we don’t.  We only travel in two dimensions.  Okay, we have planes and spaceships, but your average person only travels in two dimensions.

Even then, in the suburbs and especially in the city, you’re limited to straight lines.  So I could even argue that we only travel in one dimension.  It was so much freer as a bird!  But, because my quarry was limited to the rules of the road, so was I.

Eventually, Barbara made a stop.  She’d gone to the mall.  <Should we go in after her?> Cassie asked.

<No, let’s take this chance to re-morph,> I said.  <I’d rather miss what’s going on in there than miss what happens when she comes out.>

<What if she meets with Chapman or David in there?>

<Chapman sounded like a businessman,> I said.  <I bet he works a 9-to-5, and probably not at the mall.  If she were going to see David, it would probably be at his place or at a motel.  If he’s important, he probably doesn’t work at the mall, either.>

We decided to re-morph.  While Barbara was inside, we didn’t have anything better to do, so I decided to try and find the range on thought-speak.  We played around for a while, acting like the old Verizon commercials.  <Can you hear me now? Good.>  We tested distance, we tried through barriers. 

We found that if someone was out of range of normal thought-speak, we could shout, but that turned some heads nearby.  Walls didn’t seem to do much at all.  It wasn’t a sound, so of course sound-proof barriers wouldn’t do anything.

Next, it was Cassie’s turn to run point, and my turn to follow.  Cassie took a different tactic than me.  She stayed behind Barbara.  This meant she was always playing catchup, but it also meant that she never had to backtrack if she guessed a turn wrong, like I did. 

She had another good idea:  to stagger our re-morphs.  That way we didn’t need to find a 20-minute window for one of us to re-morph while the other stood watch, and vice versa.  Instead, we only needed enough time for one of us to leapfrog ahead in the general direction we were headed, and then fly our way back to each other.  Most of the time, stoplights gave us enough time to go.

Together, we tracked Barbara as she went to a nail salon to get sparkly red nails to match her car, to a local middle school to have a meeting with a slightly-bald administrator, to a movie theater, and to a grocery store to pick up a few items off her list.

Around 2 o’clock, when she was heading back into the house, Cassie and I both re-morphed again.  She kept watch over Barbara, and I went back to our house.  Tobias and Rachel were supposed to be there soon. 

We all morphed bird.  Rachel and I didn’t like being so close to a red-tailed hawk, but even with all the missions I’d done, Tobias had probably spent more time in Hawk morph than I had in all of my morphs combined.  He knew how to control the hunter inside.  I took the two of them back over to Marco’s for them to take their shift. 

When I got home, I had barely enough time to shower and change into my work clothes and make it to work on time.  Cassie even had to text her boss to let him know that she’d be late.  I texted Rachel to start her shift earlier tomorrow.  She’d see it when she got back to my place after the evening surveillance was over.  I also texted Marco to let him know he should compliment his wife on her nails.

We spent the next couple of weekdays doing this same pattern.  Cassie and I took watch in the morning.  Rachel and Tobias took the evening shift.  Marco, if you’re reading this, you were a lazy piece of shit who didn’t lift a finger the whole fucking week.

It wasn’t until Friday that we all had the afternoon off.  Cassie and I don’t work on Fridays.  That’s usually our date night.  However, this Friday, date night was trumped by an intelligence meeting, for us all to compare notes from our flights.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

It turns out the mall and the middle school were where Barbara went every day.  Rachel had followed her into the mall, and found out David Thompson is the local manager of Hot Topic.  We’re not really sure what the Yeerks wanted with him, but at least we had a name other than Barbara to spy on.  If she was still trying to seduce him, then it meant the Yeerks didn’t have what they needed, yet. 

Cassie told Marco that once the Yeerks mission with him was complete, Barbara-Controller would break off the affair.  After all, it didn’t make sense for her to be running around and get caught if she didn’t need to.  Marco said he agreed with her, but I don’t think he found any comfort in her words. 

We also figured out who Chapman is.  We looked at the Faculty list on the middle school’s website, and Hedrick Chapman was listed as the Vice Principle.  A quick Google Search for his name brought up articles about a recent organization called The Sharing.  Chapman was the leader of the local chapter of The Sharing.

We then went to their website, and it just looked like a secular version of Young Life that my girlfriend in middle school had dragged me to.  Maybe like a boys and girls club.  It didn’t seem to be that important, except that a Controller was in charge of it.

Everyone seemed tired of following around Marco’s wife; Marco most of all.  He wanted to do something.  We had some new names to go after.  We opted for The Sharing.  They had meetings on Friday nights.

First, we needed to find some way to blend in.  This was a group for middle school and high school students.  If a 31-year-old man showed up, they’d probably assume I was just a predator there to hit on underage girls, so that was a definite no-go.  There’s no way Cassie or Rachel could pass for that age, either.  Marco might have been able to pass as a super-senior, but the point is, we needed to look like kids, and Tobias was about the only one who fit the bill.

“One of you could morph me,” Tobias suggested.  “I’m pretty sure you’d look almost like a different person.”

“I’ll do that,” I said.  “Unless you want to, Marco?  I think we should keep the boys as boys, unless there’s a real good reason.”

“Have at it,” Marco said.

And so it was that I acquired Tobias.  I didn’t bother morphing him yet.  I already knew how to control a human, after all, and I didn’t want to turn into a naked teenage boy in front of my family.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if when you morph me, you could morph everything I can?” Tobias asked.

“Doesn’t work,” Rachel said.  “I already tried it with Jake.”

“You’ve morphed a boy?” Tobias asked.  “That means you must know how to handle a dick.”

“I’ve known a bit longer than that, honey,” Rachel said.  Her voice was sweet.  So sweet it sounded artificial.  I hoped Tobias heard the venom behind the honey.

“What about the rest of us?” Rachel asked.

“What about your sisters?” Cassie asked.  “What are they now, 11 and 14?”

“That might work,” Rachel agreed.

“Bad idea,” Marco said.  “Let’s say we go, and you need to put names down.  So you put down their names.  Now they’re on a list.  Or you put down fake names.  Now if someone sees them and calls them by their real name, it’s awkward.  Or let’s say someone recognizes you as them, then in school says ‘hi, I saw you at the Sharing.’  Now it’s awkward, and now they’ve heard about The Sharing and may want to go to a Yeerk kids club.”

“You saw all that in just a few seconds?” Rachel asked. 

“Lots of other reasons crossed my mind,” Marco said.  “That seemed to be enough.”

“So then what do we do?” Rachel seemed to be the one asking a lot of questions tonight.

“We could get other kids my age,” Tobias suggested. 

“More problems with that,” Marco said.  “Are we going to go around town looking for teenagers saying ‘hey, come here so I can acquire you,’?  Plus, all the issues before.”

“Do we even need more?” I asked.  “Tobias and I can go in.  The rest of you can sit outside and keep watch.”  So, the plan was set.  Of course, Murphy has several laws relating to how well plans usually work out:  they don’t.

 

* * *

 

 

We flew to the Sharing meeting together.  They had a special community center in a large lot near the middle school.  When I say we flew together, I mean Rachel and I flew in formation, Cassie and Marco flew in formation, and Tobias flew by himself, but we were all within thought-speak range of each other, which turned out to be about a thousand yards.  It takes sound three seconds to travel that far, but thought-speak was instantaneous. 

On the way, Cassie spotted something strange.  <There’s a northern harrier here,> she said.

<So?> Rachel asked.

<So, they’re usually up in Canada this time of year.  Something’s off.>

<Maybe it stayed south for the summer,> I suggested.

At the same time, Marco asked <Tobias, do you think you can take it?>  Thought speak is funny in that we didn’t interrupt each other.  It’s like the messages queued up and everyone heard both thoughts just the same.

<I’m not sure,> Tobias said.  <Never been in a fight in this thing.  I just like to fly.>

At the same time, Cassie answered me <Harriers go up north to mate.  This is when they get horny.  You really think they’re going to skip that?>

I knew the plan was to check out The Sharing, but this was a new wrinkle.  An animal out of place?  Could be natural, but it could also be a morpher.  The only morpher we knew was Visser Three.  Why he’d be watching The Sharing from outside as a hawk, I didn’t know, but it was the only explanation that made sense.

<Don’t do anything to attract attention,> I said.  <That might be Visser Three.  If it is, I don’t want him to know we’re onto The Sharing.>

<Or that we even exist?> Marco added.

<Right,> I said.  <Marco, Cassie, why don’t you land in a tree far enough away from him.  Rachel, you and I can land on the building.  Tobias, how hard is it to circle overhead?>

<Over the black tar roof?> Tobias asked.  <The thermals are going to be beautiful.  I’ll just glide.>

<What’s a thermal?> Marco asked.

<Like a hot pillar of air that just rises,> Tobias explained.  <Most of my flying is hopping from thermal to thermal.>

<Wish I’d’ve known that when we started this,> I said. 

Before we could argue, Marco interrupted us, <Guys, the harrier is gone.>

From his position in the air, Tobias spotted the hawk, and led us to it.  <It’s de-morphing!> he exclaimed.  <It’s an Andalite.>

<Let’s go after it,> I said.

<Yeah, because we can totally handle one of those things,> Marco said sarcastically.  <Remember what Aximili did?  And he was just a kid!>

<I remember,> I said.  <But he’s by himself.  This is our best shot.> The others may or may not have agreed with my logic, but they all followed my order.  We landed around the de-morphing Andalite.  We didn’t land close enough for him to see us, but close enough we could close in on him like a pincer move.

<Have your battle morphs ready, just in case,> I said.  I started to demorph.

<One step ahead of you,> Tobias said. 

Rachel and I de-morphed as fast as we could.  “Great, no shoes,” Rachel complained.  We were well out into the woods.

We moved towards where the Andalite had been de-morphing.  He was already re-morphing back to Harrier.  _He must have been near the time limit_ , I thought. 

That’s when I spotted Tobias.  Or rather, I spotted Tobias mid-morph.  His skin was blue, with fur sprouting all over.  Tiny horns were erupting from his head.  He nearly fell backwards as his ass grew legs and a tail.  He leaned forward to balance until the legs formed enough to support him.  Even then, he had to shuffle his feet – which were turning into hooves – as a whole body grew between the four legs. 

Bone poked out near the tip of his ever-growing tail.  The bone curved into a crescent moon shape.  His mouth folded over, like Neo’s in the Matrix when Agent Smith was interrogating him.  His nose split and his nostrils separated into four.  The horns on top of his head grew into stalks.  The ends of the stalks grew into balls, and all of a sudden eyes appeared.  In just a few short minutes, my coworker had turned into an alien.  Tobias was an Andalite.

<Visser Three?> Tobias asked the full-grown alien in front of us.

<You’re not Aximili,> was all the answer he got.  Unlike before, I didn’t get anything else.  His voice seemed off.  Guarded.

<You’re not Visser Three,> Tobias said.

<You’re humans,> the other Andalite said.  He was facing Tobias, but his eye stalks were going back and forth between the other four of us.  <That’s the only way you can morph from human to Aximili.  How can you do this?>

“We got the morphing power from Aximili,” I said.

<Heresy!> he hissed.  This time I felt the rage.  <If what you say is true, where is he?>

“He’s dead,” Cassie said.

<Lies.  You stole the _Escafil_ device and then you killed him.  Aximili would not break Seerow’s Kindness.>

“Let us explain-” Marco said, but he was interrupted.

<I don’t have time for your excuses, murderers,> he said.  In the blink of an eye, he struck towards Tobias with his tail.  Tobias instinctively reacted to bring his own tail up to block it.

“Cassie, Marco, battle morphs now!” I yelled.  I was Action Jake again. 

I ran towards the Andalite.  He struck at Tobias again.  This time, Tobias stepped and held up his seven-fingered hands to protect his face.  The Andalite’s tail sliced through his hands without even slowing down.  <Yaaargh!> Tobias screeched in pain.  For the first time, I felt the emotion from a human’s thought-speak.  I could feel his pain, just like I felt Aximili’s pain a week before.

The Andalite reared his tail back, cocked and loaded for another strike at Tobias.  I grabbed onto his tail, using the same grip I’d use for a sleeper hold if I was infiltrating an enemy stronghold.  I had forgotten how strong Aximili’s tail is.  I felt the ground drop away from my feet.  I looked down to see what was happening.  I saw tree trunks below my feet, as far as I could see.  Then I saw sky.  I barely had time to wonder why the sky was down before my back slammed into the ground.

I coughed.  The air was forced from my lungs by the impact.  It was still early afternoon, but to me, the stars were already out.  I managed to maintain my grip on his tail.  My arms were wrapped around it like a pretzel, and my hands each held the other arm.  He wasn’t going to shake me off that easy.

He slammed me down again.  There was no more wind to knock out, but it made it harder to try and breath again.  He went to slam me down a third time, but this time Tobias helped me out.  Tobias sliced out with his tail and intercepted the one I was holding, a couple feet below my arm.  The tail was sheared clean.  The good news is I was no longer a ragdoll for an alien tail.  The bad news is I was at the apex of the arc, already moving pretty fast. 

I didn’t just fall to the ground.  My momentum launched me into the air like I’d been shot out of a catapult.  I hit a tree forty feet from where the two blue aliens squared off.  I heard a snap.  I thought it was a branch, until I tried to use my arm to break my fall.  White-hot pain surged through my forearm, and I realized it wasn’t a branch that had broken.  I immediately started to morph into the Rottweiller.

Tobias and the other Andalite squared off with each other.  Andalite arms are pretty weak, so Tobias seemed to be ahead, but he was starting to sway back and forth.  The blood loss must be getting to him.  The Andalite reached out and covered Tobias’ nose; the only way Andalite’s can breathe.  Tobias swung his tail and loped off the hand, but the exertion took its toll, and his knees buckled.  The alien held up his other hand to Tobias, but Rachel pushed it away!

After blocking his attack, Rachel responded with a quick one-two punch.  Before she could continue the combination, the Andalite kicked straight up with one of his sharp hooves right into her snatch.  He reared up on his hind legs, towering over her, and brought his other front hoof down into her chest.  The first kick lifted her up in the air and took away any leverage she had against the ground.  The second kick sent her flying and rolling through the trees, until she came to a rest against a massive evergreen.

“Rachel, morph!” I ordered.  My mouth stretched out in the middle of speaking, and “morph” came out more as a bark, but she got the picture and started going Pitbull.  Cassie was almost done with her horse morph, and Marco was halfway through going into the Buck.

Tobias sliced at the other Andalite’s chest.  We were picking him apart piece by piece.  As long as we could keep up the offensive, we were fine.  The Andalite leaned back to avoid the attack.  Tobias’ tail was moving a lot slower than it should have.  Once again, the Andalite held up his hand to Tobias’ nose, and without Rachel to protect him, he quickly fainted.

The Andalite started morphing back to the Northern Harrier.  As soon as the morph hit his wounded parts, he morphed back into his Andalite form, his body whole once again.  <So much for picking him apart,> I said.

Cassie was in horse morph now, and before he could react, she turned around and back-kicked him in the side with both of her hooves.  My dog’s ears had just formed, and they heard the ribs crack under the blow.  He fell over onto his side, but before he hit the ground, he sliced up with his tail and cut Cassie’s hind legs off.  <Aaauueeeeeee!> She screamed.  The horse screamed, too.  It was unsettling.  Like two voices crying out in harmony with each other.

<De-morph!> I ordered.  It seemed like a waste for her to get in only a single kick and then have to de-morph, but I wanted her to change back while she was still conscious.  With that much blood loss, she was dead if she passed out.

The alien climbed back to his feet just as Marco finished morphing.  Marco was a decent-size buck with a head of horns atop his head.  He charged in, head down, but with a quick figure-eight strike with his tail, the Andalite cut off the antlers near the head, and then Marco’s front legs.  He fell harmlessly in front of him.  <Hunnnggggggghh!>  Marco’s scream was muffled, like when you stub your toe in the middle of the night and don’t want to wake up your spouse.  The deer’s shriek was not muffled.  That shriek still haunts me today.

<You demorph, too,> I ordered.  I’d tell Tobias to de-morph, but he wasn’t even conscious.  I hoped we’d be able to wake him up before he bled out.  I squared off against the Andalite.  I let out a guttural growl.  _Enemy_ , I thought.   <We didn’t kill Aximili,> I said.  <Visser Three did.>

His tail lashed out at me.  Somehow, the Rottweiler was able to dodge the attack.  Dogs are pack hunters.  They bring down prey by attacking as a group, and whichever one the buffalo or wildebeest tries to gore with their horns, will go into evasive maneuvers while the rest attack it from behind.  The idiom is “cat-like reflexes”, when it really should be “dog-like reflexes.”

Cassie was de-morphing already.  Blood still gushed from her rear, but the wound was closing fast.  Two horse legs lay dead on the ground, but I barely paid them any notice.  Two stag antlers lay near them.  Those had some sharp points to them.  I paid a bit more attention to them, but only enough to avoid impaling myself.

The Andalite lashed out again, and again I dodged the attack.  Rachel had finished morphing to Pitbull.  She tried to sneak up behind him, but he saw her with his stalk eyes and slashed at her with his tail.  Like me, she managed to leap to avoid the blow, but we couldn’t get near him.  This wasn’t a muskox that could only look at one of us at a time.  This was a ninja with a giant, flexible spear that could see in every direction at once.

<Lead him away from the others,> I said.  Rachel and I started circling around him, but we tried to lead him away from Cassie and Marco as they re-morphed out of their injuries, and away from Tobias’ collapsed alien body.   We couldn’t.  He wanted to chase us, I could tell.  Not because of some psychic feelings transmission, just the way he twitched and moved as we got out of range of his tail blade.  However, he didn’t want to get too far away from the others, especially Tobias.  He knew we wouldn’t leave them.

Cassie was halfway de-morphed.  She was still covered in blood, but she wasn’t bleeding anymore.  Somehow, she found the strength to walk towards the Andalite.  She wasn’t trying to fight him, though.  She just walked towards him, arms raised, hooves in the air.

He responded by slicing his tail clean through her chest.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

<Hhunngggg!>  Cassie still had quite a bit of horse left on her.  Her chest was too big for the scythe-like blade to cut in half, but it still cut deep.  Just as fast as her body was opened up, the wound closed.  She kept de-morphing.

The Andalite struck her again.  “Aaagggh!”  Aside from a quick jolt of pain, the cut did nothing.  Cassie kept de-morphing. 

I was pissed off already, but this was my wife!  The whole time, I knew it was her, but seeing her turn back into Cassie made it all the more real.  The screams at first were that of a horse, but now I was listening to my wife scream in agony.  <What the hell are you doing?> I asked.  She didn’t answer.  She just kept de-morphing.

Again he struck her.  Again she screamed.  Now, she looked like my wife wearing leather, and she sounded like my wife (maybe with a cold).  That was enough.  I lunged.  Not at the Andalite.  I knew I couldn’t get close to him without getting dismembered.  I lunged at my wife.

My 120-pound fatass-Rottweiler-self lunged at Cassie to knock her away.  Then I took a hit to the shoulder.  Pain exploded as his blade passed through me.  I fought the urge to thought-scream my pain, but there was no stopping the dog from yelping.  I tried to lift my paw off the ground to take my weight off it, but my front leg wouldn’t even move.

I collapsed on the ground and rolled over.  My shoulder felt like it was on fire.  Suddenly, my hind leg exploded in pain.  I was confused.  The Andalite hadn’t struck me again.  I looked down and saw a tan Pitbull clamped on my ankle, dragging me out of range of the Andalite.  <Thanks, Rachel,> I said.  I was starting to get dizzy.  I knew I needed to de-morph.

As I started my own de-morph, Cassie was back in front of me.  She was completely human.  Once again, her hands were up in a peaceful gesture, but she was trembling. 

<What are you playing at?> the Andalite asked.  He stuck his tail right up to her throat. 

“You’re not going to kill me,” Cassie said sternly.

One small step at a time, he moved towards her, until she was close enough he could grab her with his hands.  He grabbed the straps on her sports bra and pulled her in close to him.

“Let go of her!” I yelled.

<What could you possibly do if I don’t?> His voice wasn’t challenging; it was derisive.  He wasn’t trying to bait me to fight him.  He was telling me it was pointless.  If only I had a gun.  I could easily outrange his tail with my Caracal. 

“You’re not going to kill me,” Cassie said again.  “You’re not going to kill any of us.”

<And why not?>

“You want to avenge Aximili,” she explained.  “So do we.”

<What do you care of Aximili?>

<For one, he sacrificed himself so we wouldn’t be killed alongside him,> I said.  My mouth hadn’t morphed yet.

<He…he what?  For you?>

“Yeah,” Marco said.  “He killed a Controller right in front of us, but he trusted us to carry on the fight for him.”

<He fought bravely,> Rachel said.  <But Visser Three completely outclassed him.>

<Visser Three is here?>  He dropped his tail from Cassie’s throat, and then he collapsed onto his front knees.  Cassie nearly fainted.  I caught her.  My arms were still half-way dog arms, but I caught her.

“We’ve joined the fight against the Yeerks,” I said.  “You can join our group if you like.  We call ourselves the Animorphs, because of the power Aximili gave us.  If you want revenge, the best way is going to be with us.”

 <I still can’t believe my brother broke Seerow’s kindness,> the Andalite said.

<Elfangor?>  Tobias’ voice was weak, but he was awake. 

<My name is Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul,> he said indignantly.  He rose to his feet, and with as much arrogance as he could muster, said, <you will refer to me as such.>

“That’s a mouthful,” Marco said nonchalantly.  “I’ll call you Elf.”

All four of Elfangor’s eyes stared at Marco.  I’m pretty sure it was the Andalite version of a death glare, but he didn’t say anything else. 

“Why don’t we all de-morph and talk this out,” I said.  “We’ve got a lot to go over.  Elf, I know why you tried to kill us.  I’m willing to forgive you because your brother just died.  He trusted us, so I’m going to trust you.”

<I won’t make the same promise,> he said.

“You _are_ his brother.”  I smiled.

<Who is your leader?>

All eyes turned to me.  “I am, I guess.” 

“He was in the Army,” Cassie explained.  “He’s done this before.”

<You’ve fought against parasitic aliens before?>

“I’ve fought wars before,” I said.  “Started one or two, but you didn’t hear that from me.” 

Marco laughed.  He thought I was joking.

“Should we be hanging out in the woods with an Andalite?” Tobias asked.  He was still mostly centaur, but he at least had a human mouth.

“Last time we did, someone died,” Marco said.

<It would be prudent to find shelter,> Elfangor said.  He reminded me a bit of Marco; tough to read.

“Why don’t you go back into your harrier,” I suggested.  “We’ll all go back into bird and fly to my place.”

 

* * *

 

 

We had all landed in the back yard.  I hoped the neighbors didn’t notice six birds, most of whom wouldn’t normally fly together, all having a powwow in the suburbs.  Cassie, being the fastest morpher, de-morphed and let the rest of us in.  That must have looked even weirder to an observer.

After we all de-morphed, Elfangor told us that the only animal he’d acquired was the northern harrier.  Tobias suggested he needs a human morph, so he showed us a cool technique he called the _Frolis Maneuver_ , in which he gathered DNA from all five of us and combined them into one morph.  To do this, he acquired each one of us separately, and then all five of us together. 

When Elfangor morphed, he was an amalgamation of all of us.  A naked amalgamation, who quickly borrowed a pair of pants and a shirt from me.  Elf’s human form was built like me, tall and athletic, but with Tobias’ green eyes.  Marco’s hair, only a bit longer.

“How do I look?” he asked.  “Llllook.  That’s a fun word.”

“You’ve never talked before, have you?” Marco asked.

“I’ve talked plenty of times.  Plen-ty.  Plen tthee.  I’ve talked **plenty** of times before.”

“In thought speak,” Tobias said.  “What about aloud?”

“You know, spoken word and all that shit,” Rachel said.

“Negative,” Elfangor said.  “It is not something I am accustomed to.  Now tell me: what happened to my brother?”

We told him everything.  The space battle we saw.  The Andalite fighter we saw.  That Aximili gave us the morphing power.  Tobias explained that as Aximili helped him off the ground, he acquired him.  How Visser Three taunted Aximili and then brutally murdered him.  How Aximili knew what his fate would be, but in the face of certain death, did all he could to tell us about the Yeerks and get us started on our mission. 

Elfangor didn’t bother to interrupt us.  He didn’t ask any questions.  He just let us tell the story.  When we told him how bravely his brother died, his eyes watered.  “What…what is going on?  I’m having trouble breathing.”

“Do Andalites cry?” Cassie asked from the kitchen.

“No.  This would clog our airways.  Block our sight.  We could not function like this?”  Tears poured down his face.  “How can you function like this?”

“Come here,” I said.

“Why?” he asked.  But he came over to me anyway.  I opened my arms up, the universal symbol for _I’m gonna give you a hug._   Well, Earthly symbol.  Elfangor had no idea what I meant.  I pointedly moved me arms so he would follow suit.

“This is a hug,” I said.  I wrapped him up in a tight bear hug.  I don’t really know why I hugged him.  The guy had just tried to kill my family.  He seemed to hate us, or at the very least felt like we pathetic humans were a class below him.  Even so, I embraced him.  He figured it out and wrapped his arms around me.  I felt his chest heave as he sobbed against my shoulder.

Marco looked down at his feet.  Cassie was still in the kitchen, but I’m sure she was tearing up along with Elfangor.  Rachel looked away.  Tobias was once again transfixed on an alien.

“Let it out, man,” I said.  “Let it out.”

He didn’t say anything.  He just kept sobbing into my shoulder.  I patted the back of his head and ran my fingers through his hair.  I’d helped men grieve before.  I’ve had others help me.  I knew what he needed to hear.  First, he needed to know he wasn’t alone.  “I’ve lost men in battle, too,” I said.

“My Mom passed away when I was ten,” Marco said.  He was still staring at the ground.

“I’ve had plenty of my patients die on me,” Cassie said.  “I’m really sorry for what you’re going through.”  She didn’t bother to tell him that her patients were animals, even though she loved animals more than she loved most people.  Except me.  I think.

“This is about more than Aximili, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Y-y-yes,” he sobbed.  He wasn’t playing with his words anymore.

“This is about all the Andalites on the Dome Ship, all the fighters that got shot down,” I said.

“Affirmative,” he said.  He was starting to calm down.  Maybe his tear ducts were dry, maybe he had just let loose as much emotion as he could.  I let him go.  He staggered towards the couch.  Walking on two legs must have been just as weird for him as talking, but he managed to figure it out.

“Don’t worry,” I said.  “We’re going to get the bastards that did this.”

“How?” he asked.  “The five of you together couldn’t even beat _me_.  What use are you going to be in the war?”

“That was our first fight!” Tobias exclaimed.  “We’ll get better!”

“Give us time,” I said, a lot calmer than Tobias.  “Guns are a great equalizer.”

I’m sure if Elfangor had more practice as a human, he’d have scoffed at us.  “I’ve seen your guns.  They’re primitive.”

“Want to get shot by one?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“That’s my point.”

“We’ll also have stronger morphs,” Cassie explained.  “What we’ve got so far are basically pets and some local wildlife.  But one trip to the zoo and we can have bigger animals, like elephants, rhinos, crocodiles, bears-“

“Things a lot bigger and stronger, with more teeth,” Rachel explained.  Elfangor had had a blank look on his face, so it’s good Rachel cut Cassie off.

“Are Hork-Bajir or Taxxons as strong as you?” Tobias asked.

“Negative,” Elfangor said.  “In unarmed combat I could kill several Hork-Bajir or a litany of Taxxons.  My tail is much faster than them.”

Rachel let out something between a scoff and a sigh.  “Are you kidding me?  We’re not fighting Andalites, we’re fighting Yeerks.  We’re fighting Hork-Bajir and Taxxons and humans.  So who cares how we did against you?”

“You’re kind of an unfair barometer,” Marco agreed.  “The morphs we have could each easily take on a person.  We could probably handle anything the Yeerks have.”

“Including Visser Three?” Elfangor asked.

“That’s why I have a rifle,” I said.

“I’d feel more comfortable with a Shredder.”  Elfangor reminded me of an ungrateful eight-year-old.

“We have one,” I said.  “Well, one Shredder rifle.  Two pistols.”

“You didn’t tell me about these earlier.”

“Aximili gave us a whole pack full of Andalite stuff,” Marco said.  “I guess it didn’t fit into the story.”

“Those are Andalite belongings.  I’m his brother.  You have no right to keep them.”

“Where are you going to keep them?” I asked.  “Do you have a home?  Is it secure?”

“I have found a large forest with some good grazing grounds,” Elfangor said.  “But…you’re right.  It is not yet secure.”

“So you want to keep a bunch of stuff in the woods and hope nobody comes along and finds it?” Rachel asked.  “Brilliant.”

“The best course of action would be for you to keep these items hidden for me until I can establish a home,” Elfangor said. 

“Whoa!” I said.  “Hold on a minute.  I get that these were your brother’s things, but where do you get off thinking you’re in charge?”

“I am an Andalite Prince who has been fighting the Yeerks for many of your years.  You’ve known about them for seven of your days, and in that time all you’ve managed to do is uncover a small number of Controllers and then severely lose a fight against someone who is not even your enemy.”

“ _You_ started that fight!” Rachel said.  She had stood up from her chair.  “Wanna try again now that you’re one of us?”

“You are not even a warrior,” Elfangor said.  He was getting the hang of human tones.  “You are aware my body is that of a male.  It would be foolish of you to fight me again, even in this weak human body.”

“Try me!” Rachel said.

Twelve seconds later, Elfangor was de-morphing back to Andalite to heal his broken arm.  <I may have erred in my judgement.>

I used that as my cue.  “You may know more about the Yeerks.  Heck, you may have more military experience than I do.  But this is _my_ planet.  These are _my_ people.  I know them.  I’ve known Rachel her whole life.  I’ve known Cassie for most of mine.  I’ve worked with Tobias.  I’ve known Marco longer than you have.”

“How much longer?” Elfangor asked.

“A week,” I replied.  “But that’s not the point.  You understand the Yeerks.  I understand Earth.  This is my team.  Our mission.  I would love for you to help out, but you will not talk to us like we’re pond scum you’re forced to wrinkle your nose at.  I am a warrior.  Rachel is a warrior.  Give the others a bit of time and they’ll be warriors, too.  But you are not in charge.  I am.”

He looked at me for a long time with all four eyes.  I wasn’t sure where to make eye contact.  Do I stare down his main eyes or his stalk eyes?  I settled for his main eyes.   Neither of us broke the silence.

Cassie did.  “Dinner’s ready!”

“Do you want to go back to Human and join us for dinner?” I asked.

<No.  I will graze on my own.>  Elfangor started to morph back into his northern harrier.  <Please open the door.>

“How can we find you when we need you?” Marco asked.

<I know where Jake and Cassie live,> Elfangor replied.  <I will come here when I need you.>


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

“What an asshole!”  Rachel hadn’t waited until Elfangor left to say that, but after he left, she said it again.

The five of us were hanging out in the living room.  Cassie had made some delicious ham and cheese sandwiches.  Please don’t think this is some sexist “make me a sammich!” moment.  I could make the same sandwich and it wouldn’t even be half as good. 

Cassie had made a whole platter worth.  Flying is almost as tiring as morphing, so I was happy to have a couple.  Tobias, Cassie, and Marco each had a lot more.  Cassie doesn’t normally eat a whole lot.  She’s not on a diet or calorie counting or anything like that, she just eats until she’s full, and doesn’t eat more than she needs to.  She had four sandwiches stacked on her plate.  Morphing through injury must have really drained her.

“He just needs time,” Marco said.

“Until then, where does that leave us?” Tobias asked.  All eyes looked towards me.

“The way I see it, we have three objectives.  Elfangor was right.  We got our asses kicked.  We need more firepower.  Instead of dogs we need wolves.  Instead of a deer we need something bigger, like an Elk or a Bison.  We need teeth, claws, and muscle.”

“I’ve got some good ideas on that,” Cassie said.

“Right, but we need to plan that trip,” I said.  “We can’t just go to the zoo and walk into the cages.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t you have security cameras?” I asked.

“Oh yeah.”

I continued, “we also have to figure out why the Yeerks want some middle-management guy from Hot Topic.  We have two known Controllers in Chapman and Barbara, although at this point I’d say Chapman is the more valuable target.  And we have The Sharing, which we didn’t even get to before we fought Elfangor.”

“We still know where they meet,” Marco said.  “It’s not like they know we’re onto them.”

“I can start going to meetings there,” Tobias offered.

I held up a hand for the others to stop.  “We’re getting ahead of ourselves.  We also have the end goal of finding and killing Visser Three, and of finding the Yeerk Pool to sabotage it.”

“We need to cut the head off the snake or the belly from the beast,” Tobias said.

“Exactly,” I agreed.

“Can we talk now?” Rachel asked.

“Sure,” I said.

“Well, it doesn’t matter what our target is, we’re going to need firepower when we get there, right?”

“Sounds right,” Marco agreed.

“So why don’t we make that our first priority?” Rachel asked.

“I’m worried about David,” Cassie said.  Marco shot her a dark look.  “I mean, this Chapman guy is a Controller.  But what about David.  He’s only got a short time before the Yeerks get him.”

“What happens to Barb if we save him?” Marco asked.  We all looked at him.  Nobody offered up any suggestions.  Marco gave us a few seconds to think about it.  “If her Yeerk fails, what happens to her?”

“So you want us to screw over the guy screwing your wife, so your wife doesn’t get screwed over?” I asked.

“It’s a shit show any way you slice it,” Marco said.  “But I think this is the best answer.”

“Your wife, your call,” I said.

Rachel wasn’t so quick to agree.  “So we should just ignore every Yeerk plot just because your wife _might_ be hurt?  What if they figure out that she’s the golden child and just have her in everything?”

“They probably have enough going on they won’t notice that one Controller is untouchable,” Cassie said.

“Can we all agree that Chapman or the Sharing are valid targets?” I asked.  There was a murmur of agreement from everyone.  “Well, then we can take David off the table and still have valid targets.  We’re not ignoring him, we’re triaging.”

“But they’ll still be there later!” Cassie yelled.

“How important is this guy, anyway?” Tobias asked.  “I mean, your wife isn’t an important Controller, is she?”

“She seemed more like an errand girl,” I said.

“Then he’s probably not that important,” Tobias said.  “I’m with Marco, we can leave him alone.”

“It’s not about her rank,” Rachel said.  “They’re using her because she’s hot!  It’s not about the Yeerk in her head.  It’s about her body.  He could be _very_ important, and we wouldn’t know because we’re too scared to go after him!”

“He could also just be another person they want to control,” Tobias argued.  “We don’t know how they operate.  It might not be a big plot.  It might just be a way for them to get another Controller.”

Marco agreed.  “If we let them have him, then Barb won’t need to fuck him anymore.”

“Until she moves on to the next guy,” Rachel muttered.

“Don’t even say it,” Marco said.  “I don’t need to think about that.”

Rachel started to talk again, but I cut her off.  “That’s enough.  We leave David alone for now.  Tobias is right, we don’t know enough about the Yeerks to know how to value him as a target.  We’ll learn more about them from Chapman or the Sharing.”

“I’ll take The Sharing,” Tobias said, again.

“That sounds good,” I said.  “Cassie and I can take Chapman before school, Rachel and Marco, can you handle recon after work?”

They both looked at each other before answering.  They were glaring daggers.  Marco at Rachel for the thoughts she put in his head, and Rachel at Marco for being unwilling to go after a juicy target.  They didn’t say anything, but both nodded their agreement.

“We’ll have to work on Chapman when the week starts,” I said.  “We don’t know where he lives-“

“I can find out,” Marco suggested.  “It’s not hard to find someone on the Internet.”

“We don’t need Life Alert to find out he has a stalker,” I said.  “So we wait until Monday.  In the meantime, we need battle morphs.  Cassie, what did you have in mind?”

She smiled.  “You’re gonna love it!”

  

* * *

 

 

Cassie had given us a list of the animals available where she worked at the Woodland Gardens Zoo & Aquarium.  Obviously, the aquarium was out for now.  We were planning to fight on dry land, and should a battle move to the water, we’d probably be ripped apart before we could finish morphing.

Instead, we got to choose between the Arctic Tundra, the Big Cat District, the Primate Planet, the African Safari, and the Raptor Alley inside of the Bird Borough.  I’m actually not sure which section of the zoo the lions were in.  They seemed to be between the big cats and the African wildlife.  Maybe that was by design. 

Tobias was in his hawk morph, and the rest of us followed in our birds.  It was dark enough that I hoped nobody noticed us flying in formation.  <While we’re there, should we acquire everything we can?>

<You would,> I said.  <We still don’t know if there’s a limit on morphs.>  The crow didn’t like the dark.  I wanted to sleep.  That’s what I did during the dark.  I pushed myself anyway.

<We should have asked Elfangor,> Cassie said.

<I don’t think we got a chance to,> Rachel said.  <He didn’t seem to like us.  He might not have told us anyway.>

<We need to think this through,> Marco said.  <What roles do we need?  What uses do we have for different morphs?>

<I wouldn’t mind an owl,> Cassie suggested.  <It’d be a lot better for flying at night.  Bats could work, too, but we don’t have any at The Gardens.>

<You all should get birds of prey!> Tobias suggested.

<We’ve got plenty of those,> Cassie agreed.  <We’ve got fast falcons, agile hawks, strong eagles, you can pretty much take your pick.>

<Owls and another raptor each,> I agreed.  <But what about for fighting.  Cass, what do you think, between the felines and the canines?>

<Wolves don’t have as many weapons, but they can go for days.  In wolf morph, we would last longer than we could stay morphed.  Panthers – er, big cats – are the strongest pound-for-pound.  We’ve also got bears, which are some of the strongest and are going to be tougher than any other predator.  Primates would be best for using the Shredders->

<Why can’t I just do that in my human form?> I asked.

<You _can_ ,> Marco said.  <But then they’ll see your face.>

<Oh yeah,> I said.  <Right.  Carry on.>

Cassie continued, <the gorilla or the chimpanzee would be best if you want to use weapons.  Chimps are a lot faster, but the gorillas are stronger.  They can bench like two tons or something like that.>

<Holy shit!> Rachel exclaimed.

<Yeah,> Cassie agreed.  <Anyway, we’ve also got bigger animals, like musk ox, wildebeest, zebra, giraffe, and elephant.  They might not have teeth and claws, but the Zebra has one of the strongest kicks of anything, the giraffe is close behind, and the others have strong horns or tusks.>

We spent the rest of the flight asking Cassie questions about the different animals, or else arguing about how we should divide up the morphs.  Tobias wanted everyone to get every morph they possibly could.  Rachel was on the other end of the spectrum.  She wanted to get one morph and leave it at that.  She didn’t want to have to learn how to control multiple morphs, let alone learn to fight with them.

Cassie thought we should all get morphs that work together, like lions or wolves.  That way, we could each work as a team.  Marco said we needed to have roles, and mentioned something about MMORPGs and the Holy Trinity.  He wanted everyone to have something different, so we could all bring something unique to the fight.

In the end, I agreed with all of them.  I agreed with Rachel that too many morphs might overwhelm us.  I agreed with Tobias that we should try and get a few things each.  I agreed with Cassie that being able to work together is important, and I agreed with Marco that we needed to strategize how we picked what we got.

That meant we all agreed on wolves, but also that we all wanted another morph.  That left us with cats, primates, and big beasts.  We discussed all getting zebras as a travel morph, but figured wolves could do the job just as well, and wouldn’t be as conspicuous as a bunch of zebras running around in suburban USA.

I decided we each needed our own shopping list:  owl, day raptor (except Tobias, who already had a hawk), wolf, and a primate, so we’d all have a morph with fingers.  We’d then also get some bigger predators and bigger animals as well.

It took us even longer to pick our morphs.  We landed in the center of the Arctic Tundra and de-morphed, and we were still bombarding Cassie with questions.  It was funny how the conversation switched from thought-speak to spoken word.  At least, I thought so.  I wasn’t wearing much, and the cool night air made the hair on my legs and arms stand on end.

“So how many morphs am I allowed to get?” Tobias asked.

“Well, we’re already getting four each, not including our battle morphs,” I said.

“Seven’s a lucky number,” Marco said.  “Why don’t we put the limit at seven?”

Nobody saw anything wrong with that, so that’s the plan we went with.  Cassie found Marco a piece of paper and a pen, and he made a matrix for us to each pick what we wanted.  “We should have done this back at the house,” I said.

“We can come back tomorrow night,” Cassie suggested.

“I want to get my morphs now,” Rachel argued.

“We’re here now, we might as well get them now,” I agreed.  “We all know we’re getting wolf.  So we only need six rows.  Cass, what types of owls do you have?”

Cassie answered, and it took us all about ten minutes to pick an owl.  “It’s a good thing we de-morphed,” Cassie said.  “Otherwise we’d be stuck before we figured this all out.”  It took another ten minutes for us to each pick our day birds, and it was midnight before we had our list finalized.  Our final shopping list included chimps, gorillas, jaguars, lions, a tiger, bears, giraffes, musk oxen, zebras, and elephants.

Boy was this going to be a long night.

“Now that we know what we want, we know where to go,” Cassie said.

 _This will be like when Rachel took us to the mall,_ I thought, _only this time it’s my wife instead of my cousin leading the charge._

“What’s first?” I asked. 

“We’re right near the wolves and polar bears,” Rachel said.  “Let’s go there first.”

“Wolves it is,” Cassie agreed.  Sneaking into their cage was the easy part.  It helps when one of your partners-in-crime has a key.  It also helps when she controls the gates that separate the animals into their sleeping areas.  In the back of the large woodland enclosure were three concrete rooms for the wolves to retreat to.   Cass had separated the majority of the pack from the alpha and his chosen female for the night.  No, it wasn’t a mating thing, she was just the one he chose to spoon with.

You see wolves on TV and you think they’re just big dogs, maybe like a husky or a German shepherd.  Don’t get me wrong, those _are_ big dogs, but they’re small hounds next to a wolf.  We got into the wolf enclosure without being noticed, but we were still quite a ways away from the den when they started barking.  We didn’t even see the other wolves; just the two that had an open door.

I heard a low growl.  I saw nothing but teeth and eyes glowing in the darkness.  Teeth and eyes that were impossibly high off the ground.  Surely the wolf was standing on its hind legs, trying to intimidate me.  There’s no way those eyes were up to my chest unless it was standing up.

The wolves moved closer.  I was wrong.  It was standing on all fours, and it was still almost up to my shoulder!  The female behind the alpha male wasn’t as big, but was still bigger than any dog I’ve ever met.  If I morphed Rott, I’d probably be outgunned by either of them.  _Good.  Give us more power._

“So how do we do this?” Marco asked.

“Rachel and I will go first,” I said.  “Hopefully we can make this work.”  The two of us moved closer to the wolves.  I’m not sure if they thought of us as prey or rivals, but either way they weren’t happy that we were there.  The other wolves howling in the distance weren’t helping the mood. 

I’d like to say I wasn’t scared.  So I’ll say it:  I wasn’t scared.  A little nervous, maybe, but not scared.  I knew if I fucked up I’d probably be the reason this wolf didn’t eat much tomorrow, but I didn’t let myself think about the bloody meal I could become.  I knew if I could just avoid getting bit once and grab hold of the wolf, I would be able to acquire it.  Once I started acquiring it, it would go into a trance and wouldn’t be able to attack again.

I didn’t have long to be nervous.  The wolf, whether out of predatory instinct or territorial policing, didn’t wait long to lunge towards me.  I timed it perfectly.  It was a cross between a hook punch and a slap.  Not enough momentum to hurt the animal, but just enough to knock it off course before it could sink its teeth into my neck.

The wolf snapped its head around and tried to bite my hand, but I jerked it away real fast.  I felt his hot breath on my arm, before I circled my arm underneath him and grabbed his ear.  I concentrated on acquiring the wolf, and he went into a daze.  I looked over at Rachel.  She had fared just as well as I had.  The others went over to acquire her wolf.  Cassie thought it best if only one of us acquired the alpha.  That way there wouldn’t be any fights for dominance when we tried morphing it.

“Once we’re done acquiring these, how do we get away from them?” Marco asked.

“What?” I asked back.

“When we let go, we’ve got about five seconds before the trance wears off.  Can we get out of here in five seconds?”

I sighed.  “That would have been a good thing to think about two minutes ago.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

“Climb!” Rachel yelled.  “Get in the trees!”

“A lot of good that’ll do us,” Tobias said.  “Wolves can climb trees.”

“Not very well,” Cassie said.  “But what do we do when we’re up there?”

“Morph birds, dumbass,” Rachel said.  If anyone else had said that to my wife I’d have slugged them.

“What about you two?” Marco asked.

“We can’t keep them long,” I said.  “Go!”  I wasn’t sure we could keep them in the acquiring trance indefinitely.  Marco was right about us only having a few seconds once we let go, but we’d never used it tactically before.  Could we keep them there all night?  Hell if I knew.

Rachel and I stayed with our wolves.  I scratched the alpha’s ears.  I hoped that would trick him into thinking I was his friend.  I mean, I didn’t think of myself as his enemy.  It’s not my fault he had a problem with me, right? 

The other three Animorphs went for the nearest suitable tree.  The lowest branches were high enough the wolves couldn’t jump up to it.  Of course, they were high enough that none of them could jump up, either. 

It’s not that they were out of shape.  It’s not that they were in shape, either.  I’ve already told you about Tobias’ motivation, there’s no way that kid works out.  Marco worked an office job, and most of Cassie’s strength was in her legs.  Marco boosted Tobias and Cassie up into the tree, and then they turned around and helped pull him up.

“Our turn!” I yelled.  Rachel and I both let go of our wolves.  She did some parkour bullshit where she jumped off the tree trunk, did a half a backflip, caught the lowest branch with her knees, and swung herself up into the tree.  I didn’t think she’d been to a gymnastics gym since she grew past 5’6 in middle school, but I guess she still knew a thing or two.

I did something similar.  I jumped up onto the trunk, and pushed off to jump even higher.  Double jumping isn’t just a video game trick, you just need a wall to jump off of.  As I grabbed the branch, I heard the two wolves snarl once again.  I swung myself up just enough to get a grip with my other hand.  I’m fine with pushups and curls, but pullups have never been my strong suit, let alone the pullups big brother: the muscle up.

On the other hand, it’s amazing what adrenaline can do.  My feet were maybe five or six feet off the ground, which was low enough for the wolves to jump for me.  I pulled my feet up into my body, and their sharp teeth missed me by inches.  I shifted my hands to get a better grip.  The wolves jumped a couple more times, but were unable to quite reach me.  I reached my legs up further and wrapped them around the branch.  All I had to do next was pull myself up and twist around so I was laying on the branch instead of hanging under it.

Before I could, the female had a bright idea.  She decided to do the same thing Rachel and I had done:  she jumped off the tree trunk and twisted in midair.  There wasn’t much I could do to get out of the way.  Her canines sank deep into my ass.  It felt like a red-hot fire poker being stuck through me!  I’m not trying to make a metaphor here.  I’ve experienced both, and it felt exactly like having that hot poker shoved into my skin.

“Fuck you, asshole!” I yelled.  The wolf didn’t let go.  She hung there, literally stuck in my ass, an extra hundred pounds trying to drag me back to the ground.  I held firm, but there was no way I was pulling myself up now.  The others were already morphing birds.  Nobody had any hands with which to help me up.

The alpha tried to do the same thing his snuggle buddy did and jumped off the tree trunk.  He missed me, but he knocked into her.  The teeth tore through flesh as she fought to hang on.  I yelled out in pain.  I was usually pretty tolerant of it, but there’s nothing like having a hundred pound pendulum embedded in your skin.

The male tried a different tactic next.  He jumped up and bit down on the base of the female’s tail.  He wasn’t biting hard enough to hurt her; just hard enough to hang on.  Now I was carrying an extra 250 pounds.  I was sweating.  My grip was slipping.  I had no doubt these two would tear me apart if they got me on the ground, but there was no way I could stay up in the tree for long.

I had to get the wolves off of me.  I let go with one hand and started punching the female wolf in the face.  Not hard enough to injure her, but enough to hurt her.  Enough that she’d want to attack my hand.  At first, she was unfazed, but after a few bops on the nose she decided to attack my hand.  I guess she forgot that she was hanging in the air.  As soon as she bit for my hand, gravity took her down for me.

She yelped when she hit the ground, but I’m pretty sure that was more out of surprise than pain.  Wolves are tough animals, and she may have a few bruises tomorrow, but I’m sure she’d be fine.  However, I wouldn’t be fine unless I high-tailed it up onto the branch.  I pushed myself for an explosive burst of strength and climbed all the way up before the two wolves could untangle from each other and try again.

I was the last into bird morph, but only by a minute or so.  Morphing healed my ass (literally), and we flew off for the polar bear exhibit.  Compared to the wolves, this was easy.  The bear was sleeping next to the employee entrance, so Marco and Cassie had no problem acquiring him without even waking him up.

Next, it was Tobias and I to the Musk Ox exhibit.  The Musk Oxen were like all of the prey animals we acquired that night:  some stayed just far enough away that we couldn’t touch them, and others gave us dominance displays, but they were all enough used to people that they didn’t actually charge.  Cassie used her animal know-how to get us close enough to acquire one, and we were off for the next stop.

The raptors were easy.  You put on the leather glove and they treat you like you’re supposed to hold them.  Four day raptors and five owls later, and we went from Bird Borough to Primate Planet.  The chimps were even easier than the raptors.  Chimps are unpredictable, but generally sociable, and we didn’t have any trouble with them.  The gorillas, on the other hand, were the hardest since the wolves.

I’ve grown up knowing that gorillas are strong.  I mean, they have a superglue named after them.  Did you know they’re fast, too?  They look like awkward humanoids, but in reality their arms can give them quite a boost when they want to move.  Just like the alpha wolf, the silverback didn’t like having his home invaded by outsiders. 

He quickly identified me as the leader of our group and issued a challenge.  He bared his teeth and beat his chest, as if to say “me, strong!  Me, scary!”  With a powerful thrust of his arms he closed the gap between us in an instant.  It was all I could do to dive to the side and roll away from him.  He dug one arm into the ground and used it to spin around and face me.  Before he could lunge at me again, Rachel put her hand on his back, and he instantly settled down.

Rachel, Tobias and I each acquired the Gorilla.  By the time he came out of his trance, we were heading out.  He took that as enough of a victory and didn’t bother to chase us.  I was glad.  I wasn’t sure I’d dodge the next blow, and I wasn’t sure I’d wake up from one if I did get hit.

Then it was on to the African Safari.  The giraffes were actually really friendly and wanted to say hi.  The elephants didn’t care one way or another whether we got near them.  Cassie said they were among the more human-socialized animals in the zoo.  The zebras were a bit like the musk oxen; they were distrustful of us, but Cassie was able to get us close enough to one for her and Marco to acquire.

That left just one zone left.  The BCD: the Big Cat District.  The lions were actually among the easiest, outside of the polar bear and the giraffes.  You see, Cassie had raised these lions, and knew them very well.  It was incredibly easy for her to acquire a lioness, and for her to get the male close enough for Rachel to grab.  Once again, Cassie felt only one of us should morph the leader of the pride, so we didn’t fight each other when we morphed.

Only two animals were left:  the jaguar for Marco and Tobias, and the Siberian tiger for me.  Tobias somehow knew that the jaguar had a bigger bite force than any other big cat.  Marco liked the fact it was a tree climber, he felt it was far more versatile than the tiger.  Having hunted as a cat, I knew arms were just as important as teeth, and the tiger had more strength overall than the jaguar did.  After all, the jaguar has only a couple hundred pounds to work with, and tigers can get up to seven hundred pounds.  I’d have quadruple the muscle mass if I went tiger, so I wanted to go tiger.

The jaguar required strategy.  Cats like to sneak up on you, so if you’re not looking at them, they’ll creep up closer and closer until they can pounce.  So I sat near the door to his cage and stared at the wall while Marco and Tobias hid behind some trees.  I waited around ten minutes before I heard Tobias say “got it!”

I hadn’t heard the cat at all.  What was even stranger is I hadn’t heard Tobias at all, either.  That kid was just as stealthy as the cat.  He and Marco acquired the jaguar, and then the three of us backed out of his enclosure.  When we were facing him, the jaguar wasn’t nearly so brave, and sauntered off into the darkness.

Last was the tiger.  I’d like to give another heroic story of bravery like the wolves, or another epic chess match like we had with the jaguar, but this one was actually just as easy as the giraffes.  Cassie taught me how to say “hello” in tiger.  It’s basically like a cross between a purr and a sigh, sort of a quick chortling sound. 

I said hello.  The tiger said hello back and came over to sniff me through the chain link fence.  When his wet nose touched my hand, I used that contact to acquire him, and the job was quickly done. 

We had gone to the zoo late Friday night, and it was already well past three in the morning.  “I’m beat,” I said.  “Let’s go owl, go home, and sleep.”  Not only was this a lot later than I liked to be up, but we’d basically done a full day at the zoo, I’d had my ass nearly bitten off, and I’d morphed a bunch on top of all that.  I didn’t want to realize it then, but I was going to have to get used to nights like that.

Morphing owl was a lot like morphing crow.  The main differences were that I didn’t shrink as much, and my feathers were a hell of a lot softer.  I had chosen the great horned owl, the fastest owl and one of the biggest.  I wanted my birds fast, which is also why I was the only one in the group to pick a falcon – specifically the peregrine falcon; the fastest animal alive.

The first thing to change were my eyes.  Suddenly the zoo was lit up like it was daytime.  Imagine the brightest part of the day, only the sun doesn’t hurt your eyes and nothing is washed out.  That’s what it was like for me.  I could see every detail of the alley we were in.  Every individual link in the fences, every bar on every cage, every pebble on the ground, every leaf or needle on the trees sticking out of the enclosures.

My hearing was next.  I could hear crunching of hollow bones as Cassie morphed into the barn owl.  The silent whisper of white feathers sprouting on Rachel as she morphed into a snowy owl. 

I could hear the squelching of organs being shifted around as Marco turned into the crested owl.  He picked that one because it reminded him of the owl from Legend of Zelda.  The fusing of Tobias’ lips into a hooked beak as he morphed the powerful owl, one of the biggest hawk owls.

In a few minutes, we were all night raptors.  Owls aren’t super social, but they don’t fight much, either.  It didn’t take us too long to get control of them.  We hooted and hollered at each other for a bit.  Owls don’t like to share territory, but none of us really wanted an empty alley, so we all took off.  The only instinct we had to fight against was to find a hunting ground.  Even though we all flew in different directions, we were still in thought-speak range when we managed to get control over the birds.

<Let’s meet back over the zoo and fly home together,> Cassie suggested.  The rest of us agreed and all circled back.  You remember how good I said the owl’s hearing was?  Well, I couldn’t hear any of the other owls flying.  Our soft feathers were completely silent in the calm night.

<This is a bit different than the hawk,> Tobias said.  <There’s no thermals at night.>

<Flying isn’t that hard, though,> I said.

<It takes a bit to keep up with you,> Cassie said.  <You just had to pick the fast one, didn’t you?>

<No speed limits in the sky,> I said.

<Yellow sign!> Rachel said.  <I have a speed limit _suggestion_ for you: slow down so we can keep up.>

I obliged.  Like before, we didn’t exactly fly in formation, but we were all within about five hundred feet of each other.  The owls’ instincts were perfectly fine with this.  As long as the other owls didn’t try to settle into the same place I wanted, I didn’t really have a problem with them. 

<We’re going to need to practice these,> Tobias said.

<I think we got the hang of owls already, buddy,> Marco said.

<No, I mean we need to practice our new battle morphs.  I’ll probably stick with the Andalite, but if we’re going to go in with an elephant, a tiger, a gorilla, and a bear, we need to make sure we’re not fighting each other.>

<Good point,> I said.  <Tomorrow, before Tobias, Cassie, and I all have work.  Let’s practice then.>

<Why don’t you guys all stay the night?> Cassie suggested.

<I’ve gotta get home at some point,> Marco said.  <Do you know if morphing sobers you up?>

<Why?> I asked.

<If I show up at 4 AM sober, Barb’s going be a lot more suspicious than if I come home shit-faced.>

<We’ve got some vodka,> I said.  The owl couldn’t laugh, but I was laughing on the inside.  <I’ll give you half a bottle and a ride home.  Tobias, Rachel, we’ve got two spare bedrooms.  You hear that Tobias – _two_ spare bedrooms.  You each can have a bed to sleep in tonight. >


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

I knew most of the military training areas in our state pretty well.  I knew which ones weren’t really used very much, especially those out in the woods.  Luckily, those areas are outside of the main base and aren’t really patrolled.  In the early afternoon – right after we got up – I picked one and the four of us took the minivan out to the site.

We were planning on doing a lot of morphing, so we brought snacks this time.  I also brought a couple of my rifles and the Andalite shredders.  I wanted to see how easy it was for the gorilla or the chimp to use a gun, and I wanted to see what the shredders could actually do.  We had a huge recycle back full of old pop and beer cans that would make for perfect targets.

Along the way, a large bird with a golden plume around its head flew in through the open window.  <You were right, Tobias,> Marco said.  <Raptors are fun.>

“Glad you could make it,” I said.  I glanced in the rearview mirror at the golden eagle that was slowly turning into my new friend.  By the time he had de-morphed, I was just turning onto a dirt road that led to an abandoned 2-story gutted out building. 

Minivans are deceptively good at handling dirt roads.  I joke about hating the thing, but it is seriously a utilitarian beast.  I actually hate that I don’t hate it.  Minivans have better cargo capacity than a pickup, better seating capacity than a station wagon, and generally have more power than they appear. 

I remember one time when I was still in high school, my Mom was learning how to use the cruise control on the van.  Whenever she’d slow down to go around a corner, she’d just hit the Resume button to get back up to speed.  I don’t know if you’ve ever played with cruise control, but it floors it to get you back up to your cruising speed.  So just about every curve of the highway was followed with a quick kick in the back as the van lurched forward.

On the dirt road, the wide wheelbase made for a smooth ride, and the van was big enough it didn’t get stuck or bottom out at all among the rough ground.  I’m pretty sure my Mustang would have scraped a few rocks and roots along the way.

It didn’t take long to reach the building.  It was all 2x4s and plywood, but it made for decent cover.  There were thousands (probably millions) of spent casings all over the ground.  A few more holes in the dirt wouldn’t raise any suspicions. 

We all piled out and unloaded the van.  I took a fake rock hide-a-key and put my van keys inside.  I left the guns locked up inside, but we brought out the coolers and bags with our snacks and drinks.  We were planning on doing a lot of morphing that day, and we needed plenty of fuel.  We all had at least four battle morphs to test.  Rachel had five. 

Tobias said he had eight, even though I only knew of seven, including Aximili and the six he got at the zoo with us.  I didn’t think he considered his sister to be a battle morph, and he knew the hawk and the dogs he had wouldn’t count either, so I wasn’t sure what his eighth was, but he seemed sure of his math.

Everyone seemed to have an idea of what they wanted for their battle morphs.  I wanted thumbs, I wanted to be able to use a rifle or use my Shredder, so I thought I’d end up with the gorilla or the chimp.

Rachel wanted pure offensive strength, and wasn’t sure between the lion and the elephant.  Cassie liked the idea of the wolf and the lioness, since they would work well with the group as wolves or with Rachel as a lion.

Tobias said he’d probably stick with the Andalite, since nothing was as fast as that tail of theirs, but he also wanted to test out all the morphs just for the heck of it.  Marco was already pretty sure of the jaguar.  He still thought it was the best balance of speed, power, and agility, so why bother changing his mind?

“What are we gonna try first?” Rachel asked.  “Should I go lion or elephant?”

“Why don’t we start with wolves,” Cassie suggested.  “I know they’re not everyone’s favorite idea, but they’re pretty vicious in the wild, and at least it’s something we won’t end up fighting each other with until we get control.”

Nobody could think of a good argument to that – not even Marco, who was dead set on the cat – so we decided to go wolf first.  Cassie gave the rest of us a head start.  Morphing was getting easier.  This was my first time morphing wolf.  I didn’t time it, but it felt faster than when I’d morphed the Rottweiler.  Maybe it’s just that I was getting used to morphing and it wasn’t all a new experience.  In fact, except for a few minor differences – like the shape of my nose or the color of my fur – the Rott wasn’t a whole lot different from morphing wolf.

<This isn’t much different from dogs, is it?> Rachel asked.

<You’ve already got control?> Cassie asked back. 

I hadn’t really noticed, but I seemed to have a presence in the wolf’s mind already.  So far, every time I’ve morphed, I’ve been on autopilot for the first few minutes.  Sometimes I lost myself completely until I could even kick my way into the animal’s head, and then came the challenge to assert dominance over the instincts buried inside.  More and more I found myself already there.  Half the work was already done.

Of course, Cassie seemed that way from the start.  Maybe Tobias, too, although he’d morphed several things already by the time he started morphing with us, so I really couldn’t tell you.

<I do, too,> I said.  <At least, I’m here.>

<You don’t usually talk at first,> Tobias said.

<We’re getting the hang of it,> Marco said.  <Practice makes perfect, I guess.  Even with morphing.>

Still, the wolf’s instincts were there.  The wolf was different from the dog.  With the dog, I looked at Rachel and thought _friend_.  With the wolf, I looked at the others and thought _pack._   These weren’t my playmates.  They were my warriors.  When Rachel and I had played together, that was a game.  If the five of us played together, it would be sparring. 

Where the dog had pure, unbridled ecstasy, the wolf had pride and bliss.  Where the dog had fear, the wolf had confidence.  Where the dog had sadness, the wolf had duty.  Where the dog had love, the wolf had loyalty.  The emotions weren’t any simpler or more complex in one species or the other, but the wolf was a bit muted compared to the dog.  On the other hand, the wolf had power and cunning. 

Like the owl, the wolf wanted territory.  This place had a structure, which meant humans had already staked a claim here.  The wolf saw a wide forest away from the building, and that’s where it went.  I let out a few yips, and took off running through the trees.  The wolf was fast!  I was running faster than any human sprinter could, and according to Cassie I could keep this pace up long enough to get stuck in the wolf morph.

I wound through the trees like a running back trying to dart through the trenches to get a first down.  Like dogs, wolves have their claws permanently extended, and those claws were very useful for gripping the dirt as I snaked my way through the woods. 

I could hear the others around me.  We weren’t exactly trying to be quiet.  <Where we going, hon?> Cassie asked me.

<I don’t know,> I said.  <The wolf is running.  I haven’t quite gotten ahold of it yet.> 

<Think _home_ ,> Marco suggested.  I did.  It worked.  The wolf suddenly stopped.

<How’d you figure that out?> I asked.

<I’m not an idiot,> he replied.

<I know _that_ ,> Rachel said.  <But for those of us that are, like Jake, can you explain it?>

I growled at her.

<Each animal has its own language,> Marco said.  <Like, what kinds of things are important them?>

It all seemed to click for me.  <So that’s why as a dog, I had to think of Rachel as a friend.  As a wolf, I have to think of you as my pack.>

<Or as a cat, how anything you do is worth it to yourself,> Tobias added.

<And when I was a lizard, I had to convince the lizard to go to safety,> I said. 

<Right,> Marco agreed.  <You have to speak the language of the animal you’re morphing.>

<The more we learn that animal’s language, the more control we’ll have?> Cassie asked.

<Something like that,> I said.

<Battle morphs should be easier,> Rachel said.  <Territory and food, that’s what most of them want.>

<And mates,> Tobias added.

<Tobias, you’re not a male right now.  I am.  Do you really want me to think about mates?>

<Would be an interesting change of pace,> Tobias said.  I’m not sure if he was being sarcastic or not.

Cassie growled at Tobias.  Don’t ask me how I knew it was Cassie.  Thought-speak doesn’t really tell you where a voice came from.  All four of those wolves were identical copies of the same female.  We’d ran in the same direction, but we were hundreds of feet apart and wove through each other’s tracks like braids.  Yet, the wolf had kept track of where each pack member was.

<Let’s head back to the car,> I said, changing the subject.  We followed our scent back the way we’d came.  Wolf smell isn’t quite as good as a dogs’, but that’s like saying someone isn’t quite as good a quarterback as Peyton Manning.  It was real easy for us to find our way back.

<This is a little confusing,> Tobias said.  <It’s like the same wolf ran back and forth a bunch.>

<How are we going to test these things out?> Rachel asked.  <We gonna fight?>

<Not a bad idea,> I said.

<Bad idea!> Cassie said.  <Totally bad idea.>

<We can morph out of any injuries,> Rachel argued.

<We can’t morph out of death, can we?> Marco asked.

<We won’t kill each other,> I said.  <We’re smarter than that.>

<Until the instincts take over,> Tobias said.

<Actually…they might be right,> Cassie said.  <At least for the wolves.  We’re all a pack.  Packs play fight all the time.  Now, I don’t want to go lion against tiger.  They might not stop fighting.>

<Let’s start with wolves, and work our way up,> I said.  <If we’re going to go into battle with these morphs, we have to be comfortable around each other.>

<Sounds good,> Rachel said.  <Who’s first?>

I didn’t answer.  I just lunged.  Once again, out of four identical wolves, I knew which one was my cousin.  And I owed her for our Pitt vs. Rott fight the other day.  Compared to most predators, canines have some of the most useless legs.  Don’t get me wrong, they’re good for running, jumping, and digging, but that’s about it.  Wolves can’t grab things with their claws the way a bear or a cat can.

Instead, wolves simply use their paws like hammers in a jump attack.  When I lunged at Rachel, I lunged paws first, and threw the bulk of my 120-pound body into her.  The force was enough to knock her on her side.  She snarled and snapped at me, but I waited until her teeth closed and then darted in to lock my jaws around her mouth.

I didn’t get a chance.  <Yippee ki-yay mother fucker!> Tobias yelled as he crashed into me at full sprint.  He didn’t even bother slapping me with his paws.  He just barreled me over as he ran through me.  Before he could even turn around to trample me again, Cassie was all over him.

Marco went for Rachel, but I jumped over her and landed on him.  Rachel turned around and double-teamed him with me.  There were no rules.  There were no alliances.  We were like 8 year olds roughhousing.  We teamed up one second and stabbed each other in the back the next.  We were snarling, yipping, barking, and yelping until we were all panting like crazy.

<I think we got the hang of these,> I said.  <Let’s try something else out.>  Everyone agreed, and we de-morphed.

“I’m starving,” Marco said, once he’d regained his human body.

“Me, too,” Tobias said.  “We brought snacks, right?”

“We did,” I said.  “You guys go into the van and fuel up.  I’ll take the first turn trying something out.”

“What are you going to try?” Cassie asked.

“Tiger,” I replied.

“Get in the van and lock the doors,” Cassie said.  The rest of the group quickly complied.  I was already starting to get orange and black stripes over my skin.  I’m pretty pale, but what stayed white got whiter as the tiger’s pattern emerged.  The tiger wasn’t too different to morph from the cat, except that instead of getting smaller, I got bigger. 

The tiger alone out-weighed the entire wolf pack.

Growing isn’t exactly like shrinking in reverse.  When you shrink, it feels like you’re falling.  When you grow, it feels like the world is getting smaller around you.  The van shrunk from being a car to looking like one of those kids carts at work.  The people inside looked like kids.  The trees around me seemed small and insignificant.  They were part of the forest, yes, but each tree was just a scratch post to me.

I remembered how arrogant the little kitten was.  The tiger was no different, except it had the muscle to back up that arrogance.  The cat was pleased with itself for catching a wee little mouse.  As a tiger, I was sure I could take down an elk or a bear. 

<This thing is _ripped_! > I exclaimed as my muscles expanded.  I had over five hundred pounds of muscle alone in my giant feline body. 

“Good thing you’re out there,” Marco said.

The tiger heard him.  I understood him, but the tiger didn’t, and I wasn’t quite in control yet.  The tiger saw him as a potential snack.  There wasn’t anything else nearby to eat, anyway.  However, he was watching me.  That meant he could easily escape if he wanted to.

 _Think, Jake_ , I said to myself.  _What does the tiger know?_  

I let out a quiet growl at the four humans just a few feet away from me. 

 _Right, Cassie taught us how to say ‘hello’ in Tiger.  Hello._   That was enough for the tiger.  I chuffed my “hello” chuff, and instantly the tiger’s appetite waned.  <It’s safe, guys.  You can come out.>

“Are you sure?” Marco asked.

I chuffed again.  <Positive.>

The other four piled out of the car and swarmed around me.  The tiger wasn’t too keen on the attention at first, but they couldn’t help but to pet me.  Oh.  My.  God.  Getting pet is the best!  It’s not even about being a tiger.  It was like having four masseuses all at once. 

Rachel was the only one brave enough to pet my head.  Tigers have enough muscles in their jaws that a deep massage was perfect for my cheeks.  Maybe that’s why dogs love cheek rubs so much.

Tobias scratched my back, right above my tail.  Animals can’t really reach their with their hind legs to scratch, so that one felt really good, too.  Marco was on my left shoulder, and Cassie on my right side.

I reflexively leaned into Cassie’s touch.  I forgot my weight, and knocked her over.  When she fell down, I fell too and rolled over her.  I think I accidentally kicked Tobias in the process.  Not hard, mind you, but even an inadvertent blow from a 700-pound animal can send you tumbling to the ground.

Rachel was _very_ supportive.  “Derp.”

<Who’s next?> I asked.

“Aren’t you going to de-morph first?” Tobias asked.

<No, we need to get along,> I said.

Rachel ended up being next.  Not because she volunteered or anything, but because she just started morphing.

<You need a diet, cuz!> 

She had started morphing elephant.  Luckily for me, she couldn’t thought-speak yet, and her upper lip had already fused with her nose and started stretching into a trunk.  “Uck oo aahhoooe” she said.  A moment later, she could thought speak.  Apparently, she’d been trying to the whole time.  <...I work out six hours a day, six days a week, and you think I need a _diet_.  I have a high calorie diet and I burn it unlike you fucking lazy ass piece of shit, no good- >

“You okay, Rachel?” Cassie asked.

<Perfectly fine, thanks.  But your asshole hubby aint’ gonna be!>

<Bring it!> I said.

It didn’t take long before I was face-to-face with a behemoth.  She was at least a dozen feet tall, and had to weigh 5 or 6 tons.  Four-foot tusks stuck out from her mouth, and her trunk was as long as my body, if you took off my tail.  If I de-morphed, her trunk alone would be bigger than me.

Oh, and did I mention that trunk was strong?  Elephants can lift several tons with their trunks.  A 700-pound tiger was easy to pick up, and that’s what Rachel did.  She wrapped her nose around me like a python.  My ribs cracked, and suddenly air became a luxury.  But that wasn’t the worst of it. 

Just like Elfangor had done with his tail, Rachel picked me up and slammed me into the ground.   Over and over and over again.  The cat was agile enough to twist around and avoid hitting my head, but each blow knocked more air out of my lungs, and the trunk squeezed ever tighter around me.

<Rachel, get control of yourself!> I yelled.

<I have control, you twit,> she replied.

<Then what the hell is happening?> I asked.

<You’re an asshole,> she replied.

<Well fucking stop!>

<Okay,> she said.

“Elephant 1, Tiger 0,” Marco said. 

<Wanna try tiger vs. jaguar?> I asked.

“Sure, why not?”

Rachel de-morphed as Marco morphed.  He was more agile than me, but once I caught him I quickly won.  He of course made the excuse that his jaws were his strongest weapon, and he didn’t want to bite too hard.  Then again, that makes sense when we go into battle.  I mean, when you’re using blanks, an M4 is just as powerful as a .50-cal, so it’s hard to judge for sure how strong everything is when we’re holding back.

We kept rotating around.  We didn’t have more than three of us in a morph at the same time, but never had less than two morphed, either.  Rachel was right – predators were fairly easy to control.  We didn’t have too many instincts to worry about.  Even around prey, we were fine.  When Marco morphed Zebra and Rachel was a lion, she had no issues being close to him and not trying to eat him.  It was only when the Zebra got nervous and ran that Rachel pounced, and even then she was able to call off the hunt before she did any damage.

After trying out his six battle morphs, Tobias tried out the Andalite again.  Centaurs are cool and all, but they’re really poorly optimized creatures.  The humanoid torso adds weight and wind resistance, which means they’re slower than a horse or a deer.  Even if their arms were as strong as human arms, they lack the flexibility to use them effectively in a fight.  Personally, I’d rather be a horse or a human than be a centaur.

Andalites on the other hand?  Oh, to be able to see in all directions at once, and to be able to use that tail?  Yeah.  I’d use an Andalite morph in a heartbeat.  Besides, we had shredders.  It doesn’t matter how strong your arms are when you have guns.

The sun wasn’t quite setting, but it was starting to dip down into the afternoon sky.  We’d all pretty much picked our battle morphs.  We’d even sparred a bit in them all at once.  It didn’t accomplish much.  For safety reasons, Rachel couldn’t throw around her weight, Tobias couldn’t cut much with his tail, Marco couldn’t bite anyone, I didn’t have a gun for my gorilla to shoot, and Cassie had most of those problems with the polar bear. 

We all de-morphed and re-fueled, and then got ready for the next bout of tests.   It was time to try out the Shredders, and time for me to see if Gorilla Jake and Chimpanzee Jake could be just as accurate as Action Jake.

“I’ve never actually shot a gun before,” Marco said.

“I have,” Cassie, Rachel, and Tobias all said at once.  Rachel was a tomboy, I’d made Cassie go shooting, and I’m guessing Tobias either learned from his uncle or from one of his uncle’s friends. 

“I’ll teach you,” Rachel said.  “Jake, go ahead and morph.”

“I’ll go Andalite,” Tobias suggested.  “Might be good to try the shredder out as an Andalite, too.”

“You should try the guns, too,” I said.

“Oh, while we’re testing things out, I have something else I want to try,” Tobias said.  “A morph I got a while back but haven’t had the guts to try yet.  I think I’m ready.”

“What is it?” Marco asked.

“Let me just put it this way:  it will really help us test out our morphs against the enemy.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

“I wanna see this,” Rachel said.

“Yeah, let’s do the guns later,” I said.  “Whatcha got for us?”

Tobias cracked a mischievous smile.  A smile I had on my face way too often when I was his age.  Except, he also looked like he was about to throw up.  His skin turned a sickly shade of green.   I’m ashamed to admit how long it took me to realize he was morphing.

His fingernails stretched out into claws, and his hair stood on end and formed together into horns.  His neck started to stretch out, just like earlier when he’d morphed giraffe.  Somehow he was growing bonier and more muscular at the same time.  His elbows were so sharp you could almost see the bone through his skin, but at this point he was more ripped than I was.

Then I understood.  Spines shot out of his elbows and knees.  His mouth formed together into a beak.  I saw a tail sprout out behind him, with small spines running all the way down and larger spines at the tip.  His feet splayed apart into talons, and then his skin melted into dark green scales.  In just a few moments, my teenage coworker had turned into a Hork-Bajir. 

<Whoa!>

“What’s it like in there?” I asked.

<I’m strong, but…all these spines I thought I’d see you as food.  I don’t want you though, I want the trees.>

“Really?  Those things eat trees?” Rachel asked.

<Just the bark, really,> he said.

“But you’re not moving,” I said.  “Do you have control already?”

<I don’t think I really needed to get control,> Tobias said.  <This is a very simple brain.  It seems…I don’t know.  It’s hard to describe it.  It’s a lot different than when I morphed Emily.>

“Who’s Emily?” Marco asked.

“His sister,” I said.

<When I morphed her, it changed me a little bit.  I liked pink better than black, and I found One Direction _way_ too appealing.  This is…I don’t know.  Like I loaded up a video game character and it’s already programmed. >

“Maybe that’s why the Yeerks like them so much,” Cassie said.

“Or it could be they’re seven-foot athletes with more spikes than a buzzsaw,” Marco said.

“When did you even get this?” I asked.

<Right after Aximili died.  One was standing right on top of me, so I acquired him.>

“Ballsy,” Rachel said.  “Stupid.  But ballsy.”  It sounded like for once she had an ounce of respect for this dumb kid.

“Let’s see what it can do,” I said.

<Are you going to try the gorilla?> He asked.

“Fuck that noise,” Rachel said.  “Jake, let’s take him right now!”

“That’s a really bad idea,” Cassie said.

“I’m with her,” Marco agreed.  “Those spikes look nasty.”

<You should probably morph,> Tobias said.  <This thing feels stronger than it looks.>

“It already looks strong,” Marco said.

Rachel and I didn’t bother arguing.  We both put our hands up into a typical boxing guard position. 

“Your funeral,” Marco said.

Tobias lunged towards us.  He wasn’t quite as quick as the gorilla had been, but he was pretty darn fast.  Rachel and I darted to the side.  Tobias turned to face Rachel.  His back was to me.  I tried to attack him from behind, but he must’ve heard me.  He turned his long neck to look straight behind him, and then swung his tail at me.

The Hork-Bajir tail isn’t like an Andalite tail.  The Andalite tail is like a snake, with muscles all the way up to the tip.  The Hork-Bajir basically had a spiked club attached to its butt that it could swing around.  The spines on the elbows and knees were their primary weapons.

While he was distracted with me, Rachel got in close and grabbed his arm.  With a swift move, she dropped her shoulder and judo-threw Tobias to the ground.  She rolled and followed him down, wrapping her legs around his arm and pressing down on his neck and chest with her feet.  His elbow blades were up against her leg, but the sharp edges were facing the other way.

Rachel didn’t hold back.  She didn’t slowly lock the arm until Tobias tapped out.  Heck, I don’t even know if he would have known to tap.   No, Rachel yanked on the arm with all the power she could muster, and with a loud crack his Hork-Bajir bone snapped.  He let out a terrible clicking noise.  <Fuuuuucking bitch, what the hell was that for?>

“Hey, you can morph out of it, right?” Rachel asked.

“That’s over the line,” I said.  “We don’t need to hurt each other if we can help it.”

“But when we were wolves we were biting and clawing each other,” Rachel argued.

“We’re all probably going to break some bones if we go into battle,” Marco said.  It sounded more like he was playing devil’s advocate than he actually believed what he was saying.

“Yeah, and you get knocked out in the ring, but you don’t knock each other out in practice,” I said.  “You get shot in war, but you don’t shoot your buddy.”

<It’s fine,> Tobias said.  <I can morph out.>

“It’s not fine!” Cassie said.  “Stand up for yourself you dolt!”

Rachel wasn’t swayed.  “If we’re going to test our morphs on him, he’s going to get hurt.  Otherwise, how will we know what we can do?”

<And you’ll probably get hurt, or else you won’t know what Hork-Bajir can do.>

“Hard to argue with that,” Marco agreed. 

“Fine,” I said.  “But let’s hold back when we can.  A tap-out is just as good as a broken bone for testing.”

“Then your dumbass better tap,” Rachel said.

<Speaking of tapping asses-> Tobias said.

I cut him off.  “No.”

And so it was we tested our favorite morphs again.  The gorilla was easily stronger than the Hork-Bajir, but I had to watch out for those spines.  If an Andalite is like a scorpion, the Hork-Bajir was like a porcupine.  I’m not sure how Rachel managed a judo throw on Tobias without cutting herself.  Against an experienced fighter she’d have probably been sliced in two.

The same went for the others.  We were stronger, but the spines on the Hork-Bajir were bigger than any of our teeth or claws, save for the elephant’s tusks, and Rachel only had two of those.

By the time we were done with Tobias, the sun was already starting to set.  There was a cool breeze coming in from the Sound, and the wild nightlife was starting to wake up.  “Rachel, do you want to teach Marco how to shoot now?” I asked.  She agreed.

I went ahead and morphed back into Gorilla.  I grabbed my Remington 700 chambered in .308 winchester.  The .30-06 is supposedly the more powerful round, but for most loadings the .308 is just as good.  We had set several dozen cans at the far end of the yard, about a hundred yards from the training structure.  Another bunch were just ten yards away.

“There’s four rules of gun safety you need to know,” Rachel said.

“Really?” Marco asked.  “You’re going to lecture me on safety?  After breaking Tobias’ arm?”

“I don’t joke around with guns,” Rachel explained.  “One, they’re always loaded.  Two, don’t point it at me!  Or yourself, or anyone you don’t want to shoot.  Three, keep your booger hooker off the bang switch until you’re ready to shoot.”

“What?” Marco asked.

“Keep your finger indexed on the slide until the moment you shoot,” Rachel said.  She showed him on my Caracal how she kept her finger outside the trigger guard, pointed the pistol at one of the nearby cans.  _POP POP POP._   Three cans went skyrocketing into the air in just about two seconds.

“Nice shooting!” Tobias said.

“One more rule,” Rachel said.  “Know your target, and know what is behind your target.”

“So basically just know where I’m pointing the gun and don’t touch the trigger unless I want to shoot?” Marco asked.

<No,> I said.  <There’s four rules.  You only mentioned two.  Let’s go over this again.  You’re not holding a gun until you learn this.>

He quickly understood how serious I was, and listened much more closely the second time Rachel explained gun safety to him.  When I was sure he was paying attention, I put my attention back downrange.

Gorilla vision is about the same as human vision.  So when I took aim through my 3X-9X tritium-illuminated scope, it looked just like it did if I were in my normal body.  The hands weren’t quite as dexterous as a human hand, but I’d shot guns in gloves before, and this was basically the same.  Like I was wearing gloves and a bullet-proof helmet.  Well, bullet-resistant helmet.

 _BANG!_   A second later there was a _ting_ from downrange.  My Remington was a sub-MOA shooter, which meant at 100 yards I should have a shot grouping of less than an inch.  I cycled the action and loaded another round.  Another _BANG_ and another _ting_.  I was two-for-two.  Every time I put my scope’s reticle on a can, that can would end up with a hole in it.  It was a little awkward to shoot, but otherwise just what I was used to.

Marco had just fired a dozen rounds and hit maybe two cans.  The gorilla didn’t mind the shots coming from my rifle.  Those were noises I made.  But it wasn’t too keen on the pops coming from the handgun.  Rachel kept giving Marco pointers, and he was getting more and more consistent with each shot.

I handed the Remington to Tobias.  He leaned forward into the rifle, and slunk his tail back to balance himself out.  <This is different than shooting a SCAR as a human,> he said.

<Because it’s a bolt-action or because you’re an Andalite?> I asked.

<Yes,> he replied.  Still, his first shot rang true.  He cycled the action, and it didn’t look like the weaker Andalite arms were slowing him down at all.  His second shot was just as accurate.

“I guess it’s the gun, not the shooter,” Rachel teased.

<It’s definitely the shooter,> I argued.  I had just grabbed one of my AR-15s.  This was one of my cheaper ones.  The things are built tough, but I wasn’t exactly sure what a gorilla would do to one.  It was a bit different from shooting as a human.  Recoil was much easier to manage.  It felt like I was shooting something much smaller, like a 9mm or a .22. 

However, the gorilla’s fingers, while stronger than mine, aren’t quite as nimble.  Gorillas don’t do a lot of things humans do, like detailed tool work or playing guitar, so they don’t really need that much control over their fingers.  I found it was easier to line up my follow-up shots than it was to pull the trigger on them. 

Tobias found the AR much easier as an Andalite than as a human.  Not that it’s that hard for a human to use.  The centaur body handled the rifle’s forces well, and between having great vision and agile hands, the gun was like an extension of his body.  <I’m really liking this Andalite,> Tobias said.

“I must admit, I’m a bit jealous,” Marco said.  “Did anyone think to acquire Elfangor while he was with us?”

<I did,> Tobias said.  <But Jake is worried about me running out of disk space and I already had an Andalite.>

<It’s getting dark,> I said.  <Let’s try the Shredders.>  The sun was already starting to set.  Daylight was basically gone, and we had maybe another 20 minutes of usable light left.

The Shredder Rifle looked a lot like a toy ray gun from when I was a kid.  Maybe a squirt gun.  It was basically a long stamped box, with a small tube sticking out of one end, a large ring for a sight, and a pistol grip with a large Andalite button wrapped around it.  There was no trigger to speak of.

When I grabbed the pistol grip, the Shredder turned on.  Inside the 2-inch ring on top, a holographic sight appeared.  It reminded me of an Eotech sight, in that as the sight moved away from my eye, the reticle moved to stay between my eye and the target.

The Andalite computer had had me stumped, probably because I didn’t know the password.  However, the instant I turned on the Shredder, it was like an information manual was downloaded into my brain.  The controls were simple.  I could use my mind to control the power and range of the blast.  If I used lower settings, I could increase the rate of fire.  If I wanted to.

I started off with a low setting, just to be on the safe side.  I took aim at one of the cans and fired.  I didn’t just have to think _fire._   I had to think it and mean it, too.  This was probably to prevent an Andalite from thought-speaking <don’t fire> and then the gun going off.  _TSEEW!_   There was a green bolt of light that lanced from my rifle to the can over a football field away. 

I was surprised to notice the bolt didn’t drop at all, although I really shouldn’t have been.  I’d taken shots over 2 miles with a .408 Cheytac rifle, and at that distance you have to aim over a hundred feet over the target.  The Shredder could reach out to a few thousand yards, just over a mile, and it would aim just the same as if I were ten feet away.

There was a shower of sparks as a hole disintegrated through the can.  A second later I heard a crackling sound.  But the can didn’t explode.  Instead, there was a perfect circle cut through the can, about an inch wide.

I fired off a few more shots.  They were just as accurate as the first.  Just to try it out, I increased the power, and the next green blast completely vaporized the can in a large spray of glowing shards.  Next, I amped up the fire rate. 

This was the easiest machine gun I’ve ever controlled.  The energy blasts had virtually no mass, which meant there was no recoil at all in the gun.  At low power, the Shredder could recharge its capacitors fast enough to fire a tad faster than any handheld machine gun I’ve ever used.  It was nowhere near as fast as the minigun on the Blackhawk.

No recoil meant I could sweep from target to target like I was spray-painting over a stencil.  I’m not sure exactly how strong these were.  I mean, a BB gun can go through a pop can with ease, so it’s not like I was rating the gun on body armor or big game or anything like that.  At the very least, it was an impressive light show.  If I saw those laser blasts coming towards me, I’d be ducking for cover.

The pistol was almost as easy to use.  It was smaller, and didn’t have nearly as much power, but it had the same thought-control system, and I was able to hit things with it easier than I was with my Caracal, even in Gorilla form.

By the time we were all done, de-morphed, and snacked up, the sun had completely set.  We had to turn the van around and use the headlights to help us pack up the van, and then we drove back home.  Marco flew home as an owl, the other four of us all crashed at Cassie and I’s place.

I was just about to drift off to sleep when my phone buzzed.  I sighed.  Cassie was laying in my arms, and we were perfectly comfortable.  She was already asleep.  I didn’t want to move.  My phone buzzed again.  I sighed again, but this time I pulled my arm out from under Cassie’s head and rolled over to take a look.

The bright screen nearly blinded me for a second.  Both texts were from Marco.

"2moro nite @ shared clubhouse.

Victor E will b there."


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

Marco indeed was smart.  He kept words “Visser” out of the text.  If they had anyone in the NSA – or even technology to track our texts like the NSA does – then words like that could get us in a shitload of trouble.  I made a mental note that we needed code-names for Yeerk activities or people, just like how military intelligence has code-names for their targets.  Hell, we needed callsigns for ourselves.

But that was for later.  First, there was sleep.  After a long day of morphing and fighting, sleep was a godsend.  Then there was the morning.  Cassie made a huge breakfast of omelets, biscuits and gravy, and bacon. 

Rachel and I tried to teach Tobias some martial arts.  Rachel showed him a few wrestling moves and the proper way to throw a punch.  I showed him real martial arts – the type you use in combat, not the type you use to win a game.

He sucked at both.  But hey, it was his first day, and we threw like four different styles at him in a 20-minute pseudo-lesson, so we couldn’t expect much else.

Cassie used my phone to confirm with Marco what time Visser Three would be at the mall.  We didn’t exactly have all the details, but since the mall closed after midnight, it was a pretty good guess it would be after that.  Tobias and I were scheduled to get off work at 11, so it was up to the others to set up.

Marco and I had both guessed that Hot Topic would be the target.  After all, the only person at the mall we knew the Yeerks were interested in was David Thompson.  Rachel of course had pointed out there’s plenty of reasons to go to the mall, but there were no other suggestions for where we should go, so we decided to set up around Hot Topic.

At work, I was basically on autopilot, which isn’t a good thing for a manager.  My mind wasn’t focused on the task at hand.  I wasn’t nervous for myself.  I’d been to the battlefield hundreds of times.  I was more worried about everyone else.  Tobias was younger than any soldier I’d ever led into combat.  Cassie was my wife, and how many soldiers do you know who want to bring their loved ones with them downrange? 

Rachel was my little cousin, and even though she was a fighter, I was reminded earlier that there’s a big difference between fighting for your life and fighting for points.  I barely knew Marco, but as smart and calculating as was, I wasn’t sure if he’d freeze in the thick of it or not.

Plus, I’d only ever led guys with guns against other guys with guns.  This had all the makings of a fantasy medieval battle, with teeth, claws, and spines instead of M4s and AKs.  I wasn’t worried about my ability to fight or even scared of the possibility of death.  I was numb to all that.  I was worried about these four that had never seen combat being thrust into their first battle in a guerrilla war.

Rachel, Marco, and Cassie went together to scout the place out and set up for us.  There’s a music store with some generic name like Music Arts or something like that, which closed around 9.  Rachel had gone in using either lizard or squirrel, and let Marco and Cassie in through an employee entrance.  They were carrying our Shredder rifle in one of Marco’s guitar bags.  It hadn’t come up in conversation before, but apparently he was pretty good. 

Like the Tommy gun violin case of the 30s, the guitar bag was a perfect way to carry the Shredder.  The nice thing about the Shredders is they can’t fire unless you’re touching them and will them to fire, so even hanging loose in a guitar case, it wasn’t a big deal.  It was just as safe as a nerf gun in there.

Around 11:30, Tobias and I arrived in owl morph.  A quick thought-speak message that we were there, and Rachel let us in.  The mall was three stories tall.  Some stores only occupied a suite on a single floor, while others spanned all three and sometimes even into the basement.  The Music Arts store was on the second floor.  Hot Topic was on the ground floor, across from us. 

The third-floor walkway was narrower than the second, so that if someone fell from the third floor they’d be crippled instead of dead.  At least, that’s my theory.  If we were out there looking over the railing, instead of inside the music store waiting for the rest of the mall to shut down, I could have seen the indoor verges with trees and beauty bark on the floor below, and just made out the entrance to Hot Topic across the way.

Of course, I always think of these as “ground floor”, “first floor”, and “second floor.”  The military can be so dumb sometimes in how it names things.  I guess it makes sense, since you start with G and go up to 1, 2, 3 or go down to B1, B2, and B3, but it makes the sick sort of sense in that it overcomplicates the vast majority of situations to make one or two outliers easier to deal with.  That’s the Army for you.

“What do you know on the guitar?” Tobias whispered.

“Plenty,” Marco said.  “I’ve been playing since I was eleven.”

“Can you show us something?” Cassie asked.

“Might as well, while we’re waiting,” Rachel said.

“We’re supposed to be hiding,” I chided them.  “I don’t think music coming from a closed store is a good idea.”

“I’ll just show you on an electric,” Marco said.  “They don’t make much noise if they’re not plugged in.”  He grabbed the nearest guitar and gave it a quick strum.  “Good thing it’s in tune, because I don’t know how to tune by ear,” he said.  Then, the magic happened.  According to him, he’d been playing about fifteen years, and it showed.

Marco started off with a few classic riffs like Sweet Home Alabama, Stairway to Heaven, and Enter Sandman.  “Guitar stores hate these because they hear them all the time,” Marco said, “but you guys probably don’t.”

“I haven’t even heard that first one,” Tobias said.

“Kids,” Cassie sighed.

Marco kept playing.  He moved on to some classical Mexican music.  Without a resonating chamber or amp, the strings were quiet and flat, but it was quiet enough in the dark store that we could hear just fine how good he was. 

“What time is it?” Rachel asked.

“I don’t have my phone,” Cassie said.

“None of us do,” Marco pointed out.  “We decided to leave them home.”

“Oh, right,” Cassie said. 

I scanned the walls and found an analog clock hanging near the entrance.  There was just enough light reflecting on the metal hands for me to make out the time.  “We’ve got about twenty minutes until closing,” I said.

Marco was still playing, but now he’d moved into some licks I didn’t recognize.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Improv,” he replied.

“Twenty minutes until the mall shuts down,” Rachel said.  “But the last stores to close probably won’t be empty until at least one.”

“If not later,” I said.  “We’ve got plenty of time to wait.”

“Marco, do you think Barb is going to be here?” Cassie asked.

Marco stopped playing.  “I’m trying not to think about it.  Our target is Visser Three, though, right?”

“That’s right,” I said.  “But any Controllers in the area are our enemies.  It doesn’t matter their rank, it doesn’t matter whether they’re Hork-Bajir, human, or Andalite, they’re a threat to us.”

“I know,” Marco said.  “Let’s just try not to hurt Barb in the crossfire, okay?”

“We’ll try,” Cassie said.

“Like hell we will,” Rachel said.  “This is war.  Right, Jake?”

“Let’s be clear,” I said.  “Visser Three is our target.  He must be destroyed.  That is our mission and our objective.  Anyone that is a threat is a viable target.  But let’s not kill Controllers just to kill Yeerks.  That’s not going to be a very effective way of beating them.”

“They reproduce faster than we can,” Cassie said.

Marco nodded.  “Right, which means 1-for-1 trades aren’t going to work.  That would be like trading a zealot for a zergling.”

“What?” Cassie asked.

Marco explained, “In Starcraft, Zerg get four zerglings for every Protoss zealot.”

“Oh,” Cassie said, still not getting it, but not wanting to draw the discussion into a math problem.

“Anyway,” I continued, “we shouldn’t kill for the sake of killing.  We need objectives and purpose, otherwise it’s just violence out of spite.”

“Rules of engagement,” Tobias said.

“Exactly!  If we have an objective, we need to achieve that objective.  If we can achieve the objective without violence, that’s better.  We don’t want to get into any long, protracted battles we don’t want to stay in.  Today, our goal is to kill Visser Three and survive.  That’s it.  If anyone gets in our way, we get them out of our way.  But we don’t go out of our way to go after them.”

“So we can kill, but only when it makes sense for the mission?” Tobias asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“That rule gets my vote,” Cassie agreed.

“I wasn’t putting it up to a vote,” I argued.

“Well I would have voted for it,” Rachel said.

“Me, too,” Marco agreed.

“And me,” Tobias added.

I sighed.  “Well, now I look like an ass.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was 1:00 before the mall was quiet enough for us to move around.  We opened the gate in the front of the store just enough for an owl to hop through.  We had originally planned on going raven to fly around, but the owls could see better in the dimly-lit walkways, and they were more suited for flying in dead air than a raven was.  Plus, their flight is perfectly silent.

Tobias flew up to the third floor.  He had the most experience as a bird, and having him as an owl to provide overwatch would be a huge boon.   Marco flew across the way.  There was a Kay Jewelers right over Hot Topic.  No way he was getting in there without setting off an alarm, so he went to a nearby restroom to morph and wait. 

Rachel and Cassie had gone down to the ground floor.  Rachel was under me in a clothing store with some name I can’t even spell.  Cassie was under Marco, in the fantasy-themed novelty shop right next to Hot Topic. 

By 1:15 we were all in position and morphed.  We had a gorilla with an alien rifle in a music store, an owl in the skylight, a jaguar in a bathroom, an elephant in a French clothing store, and a polar bear in a shop with toy swords and D&D plushes.

2:00 had come and gone, and Visser Three still wasn’t there.  <I’m remorphing to reset the timer,> I said.  <When I’m done, we should all remorph.>  As I de-morphed and re-morphed, the others decided who would go next.  Marco and Rachel both re-morphed.  Tobias was the last to go.  He flew down from the skylight to the third floor and found some cover.  While he was de-morphing, the Yeerks arrived.

Well, some of them had been there already.  Apparently Barb was already in Hot Topic, hanging out with David.  The only humans left in the building – the janitors, security crew, and the few shop owners who hadn’t left yet – were all Controllers.  But now a few more showed up. 

There were a half dozen more humans, including a couple of cops, a teenage girl, a boy who looked to be about ten or eleven, a middle-aged hippie woman, and a Samoan who stood just as tall and broad as the Hork-Bajir that accompanied them.  In addition to the humans were over a dozen of the hulking green-skinned aliens, and Visser Three. 

<Tobias, go for battle morph,> I ordered.  <If any go up there, you’re going to need to take care of them.>  We had the element of surprise.  We had powerful morphs, and we were spread out just right to give us flanking positions on the enemy.   There were maybe thirty of them.  That meant, not counting Tobias or Visser Three, each of us might need to take on eight or so. 

I got close to the gate.  I had one hand on my Shredder, the other on the gate.  We’d locked it behind the others, but the gorilla was more than strong enough to rip through the grate.  I expected Rachel and Cassie to burst through walls like the tanks that they were.  I hoped Marco could figure out the bathroom door as a jaguar.

<Are we going to get him on the way in or the way out?> Rachel asked.

<On the way in he’s looking the other way,> Marco said.  <On the way out he might not have the entire entourage with him, and he’ll be more relaxed.>

<On the way out might be more than two hours away,> Tobias said.  <Do we know what they’re doing in there?>

<You’re going to have to decide now,> Rachel said.  <We only have a few seconds before they go in.>

 <We could go in behind them,> Tobias suggested.

<No,> Marco said.  <If we do that, he’s got a bunch of meatshields around him.  We need to get him when Jake can blast him.>

<If he doesn’t notice me with those stalk eyes,> I said.  His main eyes were watching in front of him, but his stalk eyes were peering in every direction, just like Elfangor had done when we had fought him.  I would probably only have a split second to take aim and fire before he’d be able to duck for cover and have his goons shoot back at me.

<Only a few more seconds,> Rachel said.  <Then the choice is made for us.>

I didn’t get a chance to decide.  Instead, something caught the Yeerks’ attention, and they all stopped.  There was a brown lump in one of the verges that was quickly growing into a blue blob.  <Andalite,> Visser three hissed.

The Hork-Bajir surrounded the blob in front of us as the centaur body and scorpion tail formed.  Those that had Dracon beams had drawn them.  The humans had drawn their guns.  I’m not sure if they only gave Dracon beams to aliens, or if it was just easier for cops to carry a Glock than a ray gun, but we were definitely going against a wide variety of weapons.

<Fool,> Visser Three taunted.  <Do you think you can kill all of us?>

<No,> the Andalite replied.  <I only need to kill you.>

Visser Three paused for a moment before replying.  He’d shown his ruthlessness before, but apparently that only applied when it was other Yeerks doing the dying.  <Who do you think you are to challenge me, alone, while I am surrounded by my allies?>

<My name is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul,> he said, his body fully his once again.  <You killed my brother.  Prepare to die.>


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been a while, I've been writing when I got a chance but haven't really had time to post. I'll get chapters 21-24 up today and then 25 I'll hopefully have written next week.
> 
> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

At the mention of Elfangor’s name, Visser Three immediately started to morph.  Apparently Aximili wasn’t just boasting about his brother.  His brother _was_ a legend, so much so that an Andalite-Controller – who we’d seen gloat about his tail-fighting prowess in the past – immediately began to morph into something bigger at the mention of his name.

<Did he really quote Princess Bride?> Marco asked.

<Quote what?> Tobias asked. 

_Kids._

Elfangor lashed out, but Visser Three had already begun his morph.  His neck and shoulders swelled up like a barrel.  Elfangor’s tail wasn’t thick enough to completely decapitate the Visser, and he healed up in an instant as he continued to morph. 

<Go!> I yelled.  I wrenched open the gate in front of me.  Several of the lower rungs tore off before I finally snagged a thicker piece.  That piece bent horribly out of shape as the gate rose, but it didn’t break.

I peered over the railing, Shredder rifle at the ready, aimed down into the see of Controllers.  I had it on one of the lower settings, which let me move from target to target relatively quickly.  TSEW TSEW TSEW.  Sparks flew out from the head of one Hork-Bajir, the chest of a security guard, and the leg of another one of the humans.

They clicked and shrieked in pain, but I hadn’t done much.  I’d blown off the tip of the Hork-Bajir’s horn, and the humans were clearly hurt, but they were still easily capable of drawing and firing at me.  I ducked back behind the railing as a sea of bullets and Dracon blasts ripped the air around me.

<It’s an ambush!> Visser Three yelled.  <Reinforcements, NOW!  Get those Andalites.>

I moved about twenty feet down the line before I started shooting again.  I had just enough sniper training to know that once your hide was found, you scoot.  I set my rifle to a higher setting and once again peered over the railing.  TTSSEEEEEWWW!  This time, the Hork-Bajir I aimed at had a hole in his chest big enough to toss a football through, and he didn’t return fire.

Elfangor was lashing his tail like mad.  Any Hork-Bajir that got close enough, he loped off their hands or struck their beaks.  However, he was trapped in a sea of them, and Visser Three was quickly turning into a monster that clearly outclassed an Andalite.  His shoulders had sprouted three huge lumps that were quickly turning into arms, his hind legs had fused together, and a third arm sprouted from his humanoid chest.  Oh, and Visser Three was about the size of a small car, and he was still growing.

I ducked behind cover again.  The Hork-Bajir I had just killed was dead, but he still had plenty of friends to shoot back at me.  There was a loud crash followed by a high-pitched trumpeting.  Rachel had entered the fray.

<They think we’re Andalites,> Marco said.  <Don’t be stupid and talk to them.>

<Eat shit and die!> Rachel yelled.  I saw the head of a Hork-Bajir smashed against the railing right in front of me.  Parts of his head and neck burst through the railing, while other parts were bludgeoned and impaled on the twisting metal.  Green blood oozed around him as he was pulled back down. 

<What did I just say?> Marco asked.

<That was only to us, don’t worry,> Rachel said.

I heard another crash, smaller than the last.  I saw the white gleam of fur on the far side of the battle.  _Cassie_.  The melee was on.  Between taking pot-shots at the enemy, I was calling out orders.   <Tobias, call out what you see.  Marco, get in here.>

<I already am,> Marco said.  <I’ve taken down three of them already, and they haven’t even noticed me.>

<Sneaky bastard,> I said.  I peered out once again and quickly surveyed the scene.  Hork-Bajir were running from Cassie.  A polar bear on its hind legs is a terrible sight to behold.  There were several bodies lying around her already, covered in different shades of blood.  Rachel had her trunk wrapped around the first Hork-Bajir she had killed, and was swinging him around like a spiked mace, cleaving through aliens left and right.  I saw a few bodies around the edge of the fight.  That must be where Marco was.

However, it was quickly turning south.  We had a great flanking position, but we lacked the proper weapons to flank.  The enemy was converging into a firing line, and we only had one gun.  Tobias couldn’t snipe from the third floor.  Rachel and Cassie were too far apart to threaten the enemy from cover.  Marco was only going to remain hidden as long as they were focused on us, but as they formed a phalanx around Visser Three, that was going to be less likely.

More were coming.  Another several Hork-Bajir appeared at each end of the corridor.  I could hear more on the way.  Elfangor was still trapped next to the horrible monster that was Visser Three.  And I had the only gun between the six of us.

<Elfangor, get out of there,> I said.

<You’re not my commander,> he replied.

<You’re going to be dead in a minute!> I yelled.  <Get out!>

Visser Three finished his morph.  He was shaped like a rugby ball, if rugby balls were the size of Ford Pickups.  It was a monster of threes.  He had three stubby legs with elephant-like toes.  Three arms the size of butcher-paper rolls that ended in three claws bigger than Elfangor’s tail blade, and three more snake-like arms on top, each tipped with what looked like a ball-peen hammer the size of large cat.

He had no discernable head.  His face was sunk below the shoulders carrying those massive battering ram tentacles.  His dark skin was cracked, like the armor of a crocodile.  

<I fucked up guys,> I said.  My rifle wouldn’t have the power to blast through that beast.  Elfangor’s tail wouldn’t cut it, either.  There’s no way the others would be able to clear a path to get him out.  Not that I was super worried about him.  The guy was an arrogant asshat, but we had a common enemy, and his brother had helped us out.

Still, my priority was the others.  <Tobias, Marco, they don’t know about you.  You can get out of here,> I said.  <Cass, Rachel, retreat and try to morph small.  I hope I can keep them at bay.>

<I’m not leaving Elfangor behind,> Cassie said.

<Do you think they’ll have trouble following an elephant?> Rachel asked.

<We need to converge,> Marco said.  <Find a place we can hide together, cover for each other, and escape.>

<With me,> Elfangor added.

<You’re with us now?> I asked.

<I am,> he agreed.

Thanks to the magic of thought-speak, we were able to have this conversation in the few seconds it took Visser Three to complete his morph.

<Why haven’t they shot Elfangor yet?> Tobias asked.

Even though Visser Three hadn’t heard him, the Yeerk leader answered.  <And now, _Prince_ Elfangor, you will see that your race’s limited imagination will be your downfall. >

<He’s monologueing,> Marco said.  <Tobias, what do you see?>

Tobias thought-spoke an image to us.  The battlefield as seen from Hork-Bajir eyes on the third floor.  Hork-Bajir have decent night-vision, because the scene was pretty well lit.  Elfangor and Visser Three stood surrounded by at least forty Controllers.  There were more at the ends of the corridor.

I expected them all to be armed, but I don’t think even half of them were.  <Russian infantry,> I said.

<What?> Tobias asked.

Marco replied, quoting Enemy at the Gates, <One with the rifle shoots.  One without follows him.  When the one with the rifle is killed, the one who is following picks up the rifle and shoots.>  Marco also sent an image to everyone.  This was just Tobias image, but mentally drawn over with a battle plan.  As if he hit Reply All to an email with a new attachment.  This was reminding me too much of the Army between missions.

It’s hard to describe exactly what it looked like.  It was like a picture, but also a movie.  Maybe a slideshow, only we saw it all at once, but we knew the time order of everything.  I don’t even know how Marco compiled his thoughts like this, let alone figured out how to thought-speak them to the rest of us, but it was a perfect plan.  All it needed was someone to give the signal.

<Go,> I said.

<Execute plan,> Elfangor said, at the same time.

I didn’t have a chance to argue with him.  Cassie stood up on her hind legs and roared.  This got the attention of the Yeerks, and they all turned to her.  She turned tail and started running, but the bullets and Dracon fire followed her.  I could hear a roar of pain as she got shot in the flank.

This time, I didn’t react emotionally.  Yes, that was my wife, but right now I was Action Jake.  Action Jake couldn’t care that his wife was getting hurt, because if I got distracted, we all might die.  Besides, it was my turn anyway.  My Shredder had been set to full power.  I took aim at Visser Three and blasted him right in the face.

He blinked.  That’s about all the damage my Shredder did to him.  However, it pissed him off to no end.  <Kill that gunner!> he yelled.  <Elfangor is mine, but get that gunner!>

The good news is they weren’t shooting at my wife anymore.  I ducked behind the railing, as once again the Yeerks unloaded into the second floor balcony.  Sparks and bits of concrete fell from the third floor above me.  The Gorilla was starting to get annoyed, but luckily I avoided any real damage.

Tobias sent another aerial screenshot of the battlefield.  At least half of the Hork-Bajir were making their way towards me.  Tobias told us their instincts primarily dealt with trees, and as it turns out they can jump and climb _very_ well.  They were like giant spider-monkeys.  I dialed down the power on my Shredder rifle to something I thought would be able to kill them, but not so powerful it would slow me down.

It was at least a good twelve feet from the ground to the bottom of the second floor structure, and another several feet to get to the railing.  Like a NBA player doing a slam dunk, the Hork-Bajir were able to jump and grab on to the support beams below.  It was easy for the bladed tree people to climb up the steel beams and hop over the railing.

Now, Rachel and Marco entered the fray.  Cassie was in a restroom de-morphing.  Rachel’s job was to clear a path to Elfangor.  Marco sprinted by all the Yeerks towards Cassie.  He was going to guard the door while she re-morphed.

Visser Three attacked Elfangor with his piston arms.  He attacked with one after the other, blows as powerful as giant battering rams but as quick as a Kung Fu master.  Like a chameleon’s tongue, the pistons coiled and sprung, launching out at his prey. 

Elfangor was just as fast, but he was completely on the defensive.  He dodged the first blow, and the hammerfist blasted through tile and concrete.  The next blow was batted away by Elfangor’s tail, but the blade did nothing against the thick hide of the monster Visser Three had morphed.  One the third strike, Elfangor bolted towards Rachel.  There were plenty of humans and Hork-Bajir in his way, but now his tail worked to its full effect.

His tail made figure-eights as he ran, slicing through legs, arms, heads, and bodies as he passed through a sea of human and alien alike to reach the safety wall that was the elephant.  Rachel was having just as much success charging through, swinging her head from side to side.  Some of the Controllers were lucky enough to be swatted away by the trunk, while others were gored on her tusks and flung out of her way.

Visser Three was chasing Elfangor.  Those that weren’t killed in the Andalite’s escape were trampled by the monster pursuing him.  However, Elfangor got behind Rachel, and it was her turn to tangle with the Visser.  She wrapped her trunk around one of the trees that was planted in the center of the mall, and with an almighty tug yanked it from the ground, roots and all.

Visser Three stopped in his tracks.  After a second’s hesitation, he launched his piston arms at the elephant, but Rachel batted them away with the tree trunk.  She pushed forward and swung the tree again, and the backswing clocked the Visser clean over the head.  He reeled back in pain.  She slammed the trunk down on top of him.  <I’ll kill you for that, Andalite filth!> he roared.

Rachel swung again, but this time he used his massive middle arms to block the blow and grab hold.  With a quick squeeze of his massive claws, he shredded the trunk apart.  Rachel charged.  His thick hide prevent her from goring him with her tusks, so she wrapped her trunk around one of his thick arms and threw her head in a circle.

Visser Three was picked up into the air and slammed down hard onto his back.  The whole mall shook from the blow.  The Hork-Bajir that were coming up to get me were almost knocked off the railing.  At least they were slowed down for a bit.  However, they weren’t slowed down much, and they were starting to pour over the railing.

Some were right next to me.  I shot those first.  I shot them before they could make it over the railing.  But there were more coming.  Some still next to me, but also some down the line to both sides.  They were setting up a crossfire.

<Tobias, now might be a good time to join the fight,> I said.

I ducked back towards the music store, but the Hork-Bajir were coming in too fast.  One pinned my gun against my chest.  I still fired, and hit another one that was closing in.  Then, I let the Gorilla take over.  I punched the Hork-Bajir in the face and shattered his beak.  He let go.  I dropped my rifle and started pounding.  There were three Hork-Bajir next to me, including Beakless, and they got the full fury of a pissed off silverback gorilla.

But more were coming.  I had dropped my gun, and wasn’t so sure I could quickly find it.  They had ranged weapons, and range with which to use them.  Several more were right on top of me.  I was stronger, and a bit faster.  I definitely knew how to fight better.  But there were at least a dozen Hork-Bajir on the roof, and most of my experience fighting hand-to-hand was done from the shadows with stealth and surprise. 

That’s when Tobias entered the battle.  He leapt onto the third floor railing across the way and pushed off, jumping clear across the mall.  He landed onto one of the half-dozen aliens in front of me talons-first, and rode the Hork-Bajir to the ground.

He reached out with his claws to swipe at the next one, and stepped in with an elbow strike.  The eight-inch spikes on his elbow certainly added effect.  He spun around, slicing another Hork-Bajir across the ribs with his tail, and elbowing another with his other arm.  He was a whirlwind of claws, spines, and talons, and he cleared a nice path for me.

The only problem is, now there were no Hork-Bajir in the way of the Dracon Beams.  We both ducked to the ground as red energy blasts lanced over our heads.  Luckily, they were coming from two different sides, and a couple of them caught each other in the crossfire.  I found my Shredder and turned to the left.  Tobias found a Dracon beam and turned to the right.  From the prone position, we both fired until there were no more Hork-Bajir left standing on the catwalk.

<Let’s join Elfangor,> I said.

<Good idea,> Tobias agreed. 

We stood up and got ready to jump over the railing and swing down to the ground floor, but we saw a line of Controllers trying to get to Cassie and Marco.  Visser Three was on his back where Rachel had slammed him down.  He was on his back like a turtle.  His stubby legs were too short to flip him over, his arms didn’t have the flexibility to reach back. 

Rachel was standing on two of his piston arms.  He was pounding her side with the third, but at the angle he couldn’t get quite his full force into it.  It was like he’d snap the piston out to her side, and its momentum would swing it in, but it lost a lot of speed from the end of the jab to when it hit her.  Rachel, on the other hand, had grabbed another tree and was hammering it into him.  Best I could tell, neither of them was taking any critical damage, just superficial bruises that would be gone when they de-morphed.

However, there were more controllers starting to circle around Rachel.  A single pistol or Dracon gun isn’t enough to hurt an elephant, but a half dozen small arms and another several lasers were more than enough to hurt her.  If that didn’t work, one of the Hork-Bajir might get a lucky stab, or at the very least the distraction might allow Visser Three to free himself and get back into the fight.

<Who do we shoot?> Tobias asked.

<Shoot Visser Three,> Rachel suggested.

<Clear the door for me and I’ll get into the fight,> Marco said.  <Nevermind, Cassie says I need to wait until she’s morphed.>

<Give me a gun,> Elfangor said.  <That’s my Shredder, anyway.>

It was okay.  I had a plan.  I’d learned from my mistakes, I hoped so anyway.  I didn’t package my plan in a nice little thought-speak slideshow like Marco, but it didn’t matter.  I blasted off orders rapid-fire, one after the other.

To Tobias, <stay up here, shoot the ones going after Cassie and Marco.  Start at the back.>

To Rachel, <let Visser Three go and go clear out a path to Marco.>

To Elfangor, <when Rachel charges, let’s go.>

<You’re not my commander,> Elfangor said.

<You want your gun or not?> I argued.  <Everyone, go!>


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

In football, there are a few different run blocking schemes.  Usually, the offensive lineman will attack the person lined up in front of them.  This is the basic idea behind an inside zone or power run.  However, some schemes have all the linemen attack a different person.  This catches the defense off-guard.  Instead of being hit by the guy in front of you, you get hit by the guy to your left that you’re not really watching.  These plays can have everyone hit the person on their right in an outside zone run, or linemen can cross each other and hit the opposite guy in a trap play.

This was the basic idea behind my plan.  Marco was at a stalemate, playing Spartan in the doorway.  Rachel was at a stalemate, and quickly getting ready to lose.  Tobias and I had won our battles, and Elfangor was doing pretty well.

So, we could all help Rachel, which would maybe give us an edge over Visser Three, but would also leave Marco and Cassie out to dry.  Visser Three was the original objective, but survival was more important.  Killing one important Yeerk wasn’t worth a third of our forces.  

So I had Tobias distract the Controllers going after Marco and Cassie, and then Rachel clean them up.  The rest of us could follow her and clean up her enemies from behind.  Visser Three might get back into the fight, but he’d have a lot less help than he did before, and we’d be in a much better position to fight him head-on than when he was surrounded by a wall of Controllers.

Tobias did his job great.  He started shooting rapid-fire shots across the hall from back-to-front.  Every second or so, another Controller would get hit and collapse.   They were ducking down behind pillars, cell phone stands, or anywhere else they could find cover.  That cover was quickly gone when the fucking elephant charged through it.  If they managed to get away from Rachel, they didn’t get away from Tobias.

I grabbed a Dracon Beam from one of the fallen Hork-Bajir and cradled it in my right arm.  With my left, I swung down from the second floor and dropped down to the ground.  Elfangor met me as I landed, and I handed him the Shredder.

<Now it’s on,> he said.

The Dracon Beam was much bulkier than the Shredder.  The Shredder was basically a box with a fluted tube coming out the front.  The Dracon beam was a thicker tube, and near the barrel it had several tubes, wires, and other gadgets.  It was also a bit heavier, not that the gorilla noticed the difference.  It had an actual trigger, along with several other controls that wouldn’t be out of place on a fighter jet.

<Use the dial for power control,> Elfangor said.

I dialed it in about half-way and took aim at a Hork-Bajir that was following Rachel.  Elfangor started on the left, and I started on the right.  We didn’t even plan it together that way, we just kind of instinctively knew that’s where we should go.  At the same time, we both clued Tobias in to help us out.

<Tobias, start in the middle of the second group,> I said.

<Tobias, rear-middle,> Elfangor said.  I guess his way was more succinct, but with thought-speak it’s all pretty quick anyway.

The three of us started firing, and boy was that a sight to behold.  Red and green lasers lanced out at the enemy.  By the time they noticed enough to turn around and face us, there weren’t enough left to stand against us, and we quickly brought them all down.

<Dial it up for _him_ ,> Elfangor said.  Tobias and I both turned the dials on our guns up as high as they would go.  My Dracon beam vibrated slightly.  There was a low hum as the power coils energized.  With his piston arms free, he was able to flip himself over, and then use his powerful legs and arms to climb back to his feet.

<Congratulations,> Visser Three said.  It’s amazing how well sarcasm carries through thought-speak.  <You’ve cleaned up my troops, but you let me go in the process.  And you don’t have anything that can really hurt me.  That four-legged creature will not topple me again.  Enjoy your near-victory, as it’s the last good thing that will ever happen to you.>

With that, he turned towards Elfangor and I.  He loped over like some weird insectoid gorilla.  Six limbs, three stubby legs and three extra-long arms, propelled him towards us.  Elfangor and I ran in opposite directions.  He and I both fired, and Tobias from above as well, but even with our rifles on full power, the energy bolts just seemed to bounce off of him. 

Visser Three seemed hell-bent on killing Elfangor before, but this time he went after me.  I don’t really know why.  Maybe he figured the gorilla would be easier to catch up to than an Andalite.  If that’s the case, he was right.  Elfangor could easily out-pace the monster of threes.  I couldn’t.

When he got close, Visser three lashed out with his powerful piston arms.  I told you before that gorillas are fast.  I batted the first piston arm away with one of my ham-sized hands.  I batted the next one away with my other hand.  Unfortunately, I was out of hands.  The third piston punched straight into my chest.

I heard a sickening crunch as ribs broke.  I heard several cracks and pops as tendons rips and organs burst.  There was a sudden rush of adrenaline, so I didn’t really feel the blow itself, but the pain wasn’t dulled for long.  I tried to suck in air and just wheezed.  My left lung had collapsed on itself.  I was knocked to the ground, but I bounced and rolled all the way into the wall a dozen yards away.  The impact knocked out what air was left in me.

I didn’t even think about trying to stand up.  I was just trying to breathe.  It wasn’t working.  <De-morph!> Cassie yelled.

<No,> Marco said.  <They think we’re Andalites.  Don’t let him see what we are.>

I hadn’t even been thinking of de-morphing.  I wasn’t even sure if I could make it with my body already deteriorating.  I was just trying to hold on.  _But morphing will fix that,_ I thought.  _No, Marco said no.  Marco’s right._

The only good thing about the punch is VIsser Three was too far away to punch me again.  A second blow would have probably killed me instantly.  As it was, it felt like my whole left side had been ripped apart.  It’s hard to describe what it’s like.  The only way you could know this amount of agony is if you’d been in a car accident or a collapsed building, and you were moments away from death.  And I’m guessing nobody who’s experience that is reading this.

Visser Three continued lumbering towards me.  Tobias and Elfangor continued to pelt him with red and green energy blasts.  Before, I loved the sight of the lasers, but now the flashing lights just added to the pounding migraine I was developing.  Rachel had turned around and was charging in.  Marco and Cassie – now a wolf – sprinted past her.

<Leave him,> Elfangor said.  <We can’t save him.  Let’s get out of here.>

<Fuck that,> Rachel said.  She sideswiped him with her trunk as she charged past.  I’m not sure how he stayed on his feet, but somehow he managed to.  I was still barely able to gulp any air in.

Cassie bit down onto one of Visser Three’s massive ankles, but the wolf dragging behind his leg didn’t even slow him down.  Marco leapt onto his back and dug in with his claws, but he couldn’t find a weak point to bite.  There was no neck, no jugular to go for. 

Rachel crashed full-speed into the Visser’s monstrous body.  She bounced.  It was enough to make him stumble.  In a panic to keep himself from falling, Marco bit into the nearest thing to him:  the Visser’s tentacle arms.  Except he didn’t get the hammer-like end of the arm.  He grabbed in the soft, meaty flesh of the whip-like tentacle.

<Yaaarggg!> Visser Three screamed in rage.  He screeched to a halt, just out of range of pummeling me again.

<The tentacles!> Marco yelled.  Tobias and Elfangor responded in unison.  Two simultaneous laser blasts, one into each shoulder of the hulking behemoth.  The Visser screeched in rage and spun around to face Elfangor.   It was this moment I realized I still had a Dracon beam clutched in my right hand.  I reached out my arm and aimed for one of the piston arms.

TTTSSSSEEEEWWWWW!   I hit the same spot Tobias had, and in a shower of sparks and burning flesh, the tentacle was ripped from the Visser’s body.  And I mean ripped.  Dracon beams are very violent things.  The Shredder tended to just cut through meat, but the Dracon weapons wanted to explode, and flesh was ripped apart at the molecular level. 

He screamed in rage and turned around to face me.  With another Shredder blast, Elfangor severed another tentacle, and the Visser turned back to face him.  Marco was finally flung free, and with his last remaining battering ram ready to go, he charged for the Andalite.  With his back to Tobias and I, we both fired on the last remaining piston arm.  The arm was blasted off his back, but he kept running for Elfangor.  He had lost some of his weapons, but he still had tons of armor and sword-like claws.

Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have the speed to catch Elfangor.  Tobias and I kept shooting into the open wounds on his back, digging deeper each time.

<Rachel, grab Jake,> Cassie said.  With her path to me clear, it was easy for the elephant to wrap me in her trunk.  My energy was spent.  I didn’t even have enough strength to hold the Dracon beam anymore.  Tobias kept up the fire, while Cassie and Marco led the way into Hot Topic. 

Elfangor circled around back towards us.  Visser Three didn’t follow.  His morph was damaged and he wanted a chance to re-morph and come back into the battle.  I was happy to let him.  We were more damaged than him.

Cassie was pretty fresh from her re-morph, but Marco was bleeding.  He must’ve been shot while protecting my wife.  Rachel had Dracon burns all over her side and legs, and one or two on her face as well.  Tobias and Elfangor were pretty well off, considering they mostly used their guns, but I definitely needed to re-morph.

However, I couldn’t start de-morphing yet.  We’d taken down most of the Controllers in the mall, but that doesn’t mean we killed them all.  A lot of them wouldn’t see another day, but the majority of them were just knocked out or injured.  They were starting to come around, urged on by their incredibly heartening leader.

<Get up you lazy miscreants!  Kill those Andalite pests or it’s your life you fools!>  Unlike Humans, Andalites don’t lose the ability to thought-speak while they’re morphing, and he kept up a constant rant of “fight or die” the whole time he was healing his morph’s wounds.  The Controllers that were still able to move started to stir.  They were getting up, getting their bearings, or looking for weapons.

Luckily, there wasn’t a mad rush for us.  The Controllers were smart enough to regroup before trying to attack again.  They would have probably lost, but if they had, I would have probably been done for.  I was already getting dizzy.  My eyes were starting to blur.  The lights were just too much for me to handle. 

<Hang on, Jake,> Rachel said.  If she could feel me weakening, I must have been in bad shape.  We made it into Hot Topic.  Elfangor followed us in.  Tobias shut the gate behind us.  However, there were two Controllers trapped inside with us:  Barb and David.

Marco leapt towards Barb.  In a ferocious assault, he raked his claws across her face. 

<Marco!>  Cassie yelled at him. 

The blow turned Barb around, and Marco attacked again, this time he dug deep into her back.  She screamed in pain and surprise.  Elfangor aimed his rifle to finish her off, but Cassie blocked his shot and gave a low growl.

<That’s his wife!> Cassie said.

<Not anymore,> Elfangor argued.  <Get out of my way or I’ll shoot through you.>

Rachel dropped me on the ground.  She then turned and used her trunk to swat Barb across the face.  I’m pretty sure she was unconscious before she hit the wall, but she was definitely out when she crumpled to the ground.  <Problem solved,> Rachel said.

<Not quite,> Cassie said.  She spotted David.

<Who’s this?> Elfangor asked.

<The guy who’s been fucking my wife,> Marco answered.

<Then you probably don’t care if I do this,> Elfangor said as he blasted David with his Shredder.  The full-power blast hit him right in the neck, and quickly vaporized most of his head and torso.  His arms and legs collapsed on the ground.

<That’s disgusting,> Cassie said.

<That’s awesome!> Tobias said, at pretty much the same time.

<You must de-morph now,> Elfangor said to me.  <We must regroup for the next wave.>

De-morphing was much harder this time than it had been before.  My world was already starting to go dark.  It took enough concentration just to breathe with one lung and stay awake with my organs crapping out, I didn’t have enough focus to spare on returning to my body.  <I can barely breathe,> I said.  <How can I morph?>

<Don’t breathe,> Elfangor said.  <If you can’t morph without breathing, then don’t breathe.  You must morph.>

I did what he said.  I stopped breathing and focused only on one thing:  me.  My hair.  My tattoos.  My scars.  My feet.  My muscles.  My face every time I look in the mirror.  My cheesy smile in every picture.  Sure enough, I started to de-morph back into me.  The Gorilla’s fur shrunk into my man-hair.  My morphing suit appeared over my body.  My arms shrunk and my legs grew.

However, as soon as my chest started changing, the morphing process healed me.  I didn’t have to think to breathe anymore.  I could just breathe normally again.  As my organs shifted around inside, they were repaired, and any blood loss I’d suffered appeared to not matter anymore.  I was tired as hell.  I wanted to find a soft spot on the carpeted concrete and fall asleep, but I was still there, and I was whole again.

Rachel and Marco had de-morphed as well.  They didn’t have to be coached through it like I did.  We were all hiding behind shelves of studded belts and funny t-shirts.  At the very least, we were out of sight.  I noticed a thermos with a very strange sludge in it.

“What’s that?” I asked.

<Looks like the water from a Yeerk pool,> Elfangor said.  <That female must have brought a Yeerk to infest this male.>

“Why him?” Marco asked.  “What’s so special about him?”

<Probably nothing,> Elfangor said.  <But this place would make a great entrance to a Yeerk Pool.  They probably wanted to build one here.>

Tobias said, <now that he’s dead, they can just get another Controller the job and build it, can’t they?>

<They will most likely attempt that,> Elfangor agreed.

“What’s the plan, then?” Marco asked.  “Are we fighting, hiding, or running?”

<I don’t have anything smaller than the hawk,> Tobias said.

“Hiding’s out, then,” I said.

“Let’s fight,” Rachel said.

<Visser Three will be fully regenerated when they assault again,> Elfangor said.  <Assuming he’s in the same morph, we know his weakness and we can try to exploit it.>

“Assuming he lets us exploit it,” I said.  “We’re making a lot of assumptions if we want to fight.”

<How are we going to run?> Cassie asked.

<We could all go wolf,> Marco suggested.

<What is a wolf?> Elfangor asked.

“She’s a wolf,” I said, pointing at Cassie.

<I do not have a wolf,> Elfangor stated.

<We all have birds,> Tobias said.  <We could fly out.>

“We’re kind of trapped in here,” Marco asked.  “How are we going to fly out?  Fly past them when they have their guns and lasers?  Fly where?  Are the doors open for us to get out?”

<We need to figure this out fast,> Cassie said.  <They’re coming, and we’re going to need the right animals for the job.>

“Everyone should de-morph,” I said.  “That’s how long we have to come up with a plan.”


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

We decided that running wasn’t going to work.  For one, Elfangor refused to leave the Shredder behind.  I didn’t really want to leave it or the Dracon beam behind, either.  If we’re fighting a guerrilla war, we’d need all the weapons we could get, and these things never run out of ammo.  Plus, it makes sense that Andalites – which the Yeerks thought we were – would prefer the energy weapons over human firearms.

However, fighting wasn’t going to work, either.  We didn’t really have the means to kill Visser Three in this morph, and if he showed up in another morph, we might end up dead before we figured out what to do with it.  We decided the best course of action was going to be to morph stuff tough enough to fight through the Yeerks, but fast enough to escape.

Our first priority was something tough enough to handle Visser Three, or a “tank build” as Marco put it.  Rachel’s elephant was perfect for that, and I decided to go into the musk ox.  Cassie went back into wolf, and Marco followed her.  Dog morphs have a lot more stamina than cat morphs.  His jaguar might be better for a quick fight, but we needed to run far.

Tobias morphed Aximili.  Elfangor seemed a bit put off by this.  He was trying to mourn his brother, and seeing him alive over and over again in the form of Tobias can’t have been easy.  I’ve seen plenty of ghosts in my life, but this had to be worse.

<Two tanks, two melee, two ranged,> Marco said.  <Good mix.>

<If only we had a healer,> Tobias said.

<What?> I asked.  Cassie, Rachel, and Elfangor seemed equally clueless.

<Sorry,> Marco said.  <I forget you guys aren’t nerds like me.>

<We’re talking about the trinity,> Tobias explained.  It didn’t really tell me much.  I’m sure if he knew how to thought-speak like Aximili and Elfangor could, it would have.  It’s like the Andalites had the ability to send text messages, emoticons, pictures, videos, and all sorts of things, and all we could do is text with our thought-speak.

There was a loud clang to interrupt our thoughts.  The metal gate barely rang before it was hit again, and again.

<It’s a gamer thing,> Marco said.  <We’ll explain later.>

The screeching of twisted metal filled the store.  Rachel and I had pushed all the shelves in front of the grate to block it off, but we knew it was only a matter of time before Visser Three broke through.  It was the loudest jackhammer I’d ever heard.  Quick bursts of three loud bells, and just the smallest of pauses before another burst would go.

<He’s definitely in that beast again,> I said.  I pawed at the ground.  Rachel and I were at the sides of the store, ready to charge from opposite directions.  The muskox was surprisingly nimble for such a large creature.  You tend to see an animal this size and think it’s just a slow, fat slob, but under my thick fur was enough muscle to move this thing upwards of thirty-five miles an hour. 

Tobias and Elfangor were behind the counter.  That offered them at least some cover.  They both aimed at the center of the gate, waiting for something to break through, ready to shoot something in the face.

It didn’t take long for those powerful arms to start rocking the shelves.  Gauged piercings, spiked necklaces, and strange beanies littered the floor near the front of the store.  Not a whole lot fell when Rachel and I smashed everything against the gate.  We kinda held everything in place on our ginormous heads when we set up the bulwark.

One of the shelves toppled over, spilling its contents onto the floor.  One of the piston arms followed it.  From that point, another shelf fell over with every blow.  <This is it,> I said.

<Get ready,> Elfangor said.

<You guys wanna start shooting?> Marco asked.

<Not until we see him,> Elfangor said.  <I want to know what I’m shooting.>

<Don’t wait,> I argued.  <Shoot him now.  Hit those tentacles when they burst through.>  Tobias complied.  When the next shelf fell over, and the next battering ram arm burst through, he aimed at the grate.  Visser Three pulled his arm back, but Tobias blasted it with his Dracon rifle.

There was an unearthly roar of pain from the creature on the other side.  The shelves rocked themselves to a stop.  The pummeling on the gate stopped.  <Did he run away?> Cassie asked.

<For a couple feet,> Marco replied.  I heard large, thundering footsteps getting closer.  He was charging the gate.  Suddenly, all of the shelves that were left standing were flung away as the gate bent and twisted into them.  The Visser had made a decent-sized hole already, and started ripping through with all three of his powerful tree-like arms.  His claws cut through the small metal rungs like butter.

<Fire!> Elfangor yelled.  He and Tobias sent more blasts at him.  These didn’t do much more than piss him off.

<Shoot back!> the Visser yelled at his minions.  Once again, there was a hail of bullets and red laser blasts aimed at our shooters.  Tobias and Elfangor ducked down behind the counter.  It was kind of awkward for the Andalite to do.  Their horse half had to lay down, and then their human torso crunched over, but it got them low.

<Set to a lower setting,> Elfangor ordered Tobias.  <Let Rachel and Jake push VIsser Three out of the way.  We need to suppress his support.>

Not too much made it through the gate.  Bullets ricocheted off, laser blasts melted holes through it, but the gate made a pretty good wall…for a few seconds at least.  The Controllers did a good job turning it into Swiss cheese, and then Tobias and Elfangor shot back through those holes.  That kind of went in our favor.

The Visser had broken through enough to try and slide past into the room.  Rachel and I charged before he could.  We were coming from opposite sides, so he had to pick one of us to strike with his pummeling arms.  He chose to go for Rachel.  The first blow hit her on the side of her head and glanced off.  The second was from his wounded arm, and that didn’t do much.  The third stopped her in her tracks, but that’s about all it did.  Her thick skull absorbed the blow, and after a brief moment of being knocked back, she kept coming.

On the other hand, I was already there.  800 pounds going 30 MPH generates quite a bit of force.  24,000 foot-pounds, to be precise.  One of my horns snapped in half under the blow.  It was like running into a brick wall.  But it was enough to push the Visser out through the gate.  I backed up for another charge.

Rachel trotted in front of me and bashed into Visser Three herself.  Elephants are about half as fast as the ox, but weigh about ten times as much.  She must have had 150,000 foot-pounds behind that head-butt she gave him.  Where I had bounced off, Rachel just charged through and drove him back all the way into the verge. 

I charged through the hole, followed by Marco and Cassie.  Those two made a great team, weaving around each other and taking down humans and Hork-Bajir left and right.  Marco would go for an ankle and Cassie would jump over him and go for a take-down.  Cassie would feint towards a Hork-Bajir and then Marco would bite its throat out in a spray of blood.  It was a glorious display of teamwork.

I focused my attention on the giant monster in the center.  Rachel had backed away, and I could see why.  Her trunk was half torn from her body, and she had massive gashes all over her front legs and chest.  With those vicious arms, she wouldn’t be able to take much more punishment.

<Run,> I ordered.  Tobias and Elfangor had made it through the grate, and put out a constant stream of suppressive fire.  Rachel took my cue and ran.  Marco and Cassie ran in front of her.  They used her massive bulk as a shield against any small arms fire from anyone that remained.  Tobias and Elfangor flanked her.  They used her like a pillar to shoot from behind.  They were somewhat exposed, but they were still able to fire as they retreated.

I charged Visser Three one last time.  I wanted to knock that bastard on his back again.  I had more room to charge, more speed to go through, and no grates or shelves in my way to slow me down just before impact.  With a mighty thud, I ploughed into him and knocked him back.  The curb on the verge was just high enough to trip his stubby legs and he toppled over.

He lay on his back thrashing his legs, like a turtle would in the same predicament.  He slashed at me with his powerful claws, but didn’t do much other than give me a haircut.  I didn’t stick around long enough for him to try again.  I turned around and bolted for my friends.

Rachel at this point was a bit of a liability.  Wolves can run about 35 MPH.  So can the ox.  The Andalites topped out around 25 or 30.  But Rachel could do half that. 

We rounded a corner, and Rachel immediately started de-morphing.  That slowed us down a little bit, but Tobias and Elfangor turned up the rate-of-fire on their lasers and sent a wall of energy bolts down the hall to keep anyone from following us.

<That’s a low power setting you fools!> Visser Three yelled, but the Controllers seemed more afraid of the lasers than they were of him, and they stayed back.

As soon as Rachel had fingers and was light enough, she grabbed onto my fur and climbed onto my back.  She was still about 300 pounds at this point, had stubby feet and a very deformed face, but the extra weight wasn’t much for my muscle-bound ox to carry, and it only got lighter as she finished de-morphing, and lighter still as she morphed into the snowy owl.  There was enough fur on my back that I didn’t even feel her talons gripping into me.

We took another corner as soon as we saw it.  The Controllers were starting to get brave.  It sounded like Visser Three had punched a few of them for their cowardice, and the rest decided we were the less scary thing to deal with.  However, by then, we were already out of sight, rumbling towards Macy’s.

Now, we were in a straight line, and I was leading the pack.  Behind me were two wolves, and the Andalites brought up the rear.  This was best.  The two Andalites could keep an eye behind us without even looking, and I could crash through the outside doors and open up the way for us.

They had automatic doors, but they weren’t fast enough for me.  I didn’t even slow down when I hit them.  The safety glass shattered around me, but the film wrapped around my horn, so the whole door came with me.  With a deafening screech, the frame ripped clear out of the concrete wall.  <It’s like a motorcycle windshield,> Rachel said.

With every step, the doorframe scraped against the ground and dug into the asphalt, but I just kept running, and the others followed.

We were halfway down the parking lot when the door finally came free.  It tumbled away and smashed into someone’s Kia Sorento.  I was able to run a bit faster after that.

Suddenly, my right hind leg gave way and I stumbled.  It was a second later I smelled the burnt flesh and realized I’d been shot.  I could still move pretty quick, so I just kept running.

<Shoot back,> Elfangor said.  He and Tobias turned around and I heard a couple of very strong energy blasts from their rifles, and then heard concrete collapse.  I’d heard buildings collapse before.  This wasn’t quite that bad.  I snuck a look back.  They had shot over the entrance to Macy’s and knocked the wall down on top of the door.

<No way they’re getting through that,> Tobias said.

He was right.  We were basically in the clear.  They could find an exit, or blast their way through that one, or Visser Three could pummel through it as that trifecta monster, but by the time they would, we would be long gone.  <At least not until we’re out of sight,> I said.

<We should probably find a place to de-morph,> Marco said.

<Yeah, wolves, an ox, and two aliens running through the city isn’t exactly normal,> Cassie agreed.

<Any of those on their own is weird,> Tobias said.  We were at the end of the parking lot and turned down the street.

<What is your exfiltration plan?> Elfangor asked.

<Didn’t really have one,> I said.  <We weren’t expecting an army, and we were expecting Visser Three to be dead.>

<So was I,> he said.

<We could crash into an Arby’s and de-morph there,> Marco said.

<Sounds good,> I agreed.

<I was kidding,> Marco said sheepishly.

<I wasn’t,> I said.  <They’re closed after midnight, they’re just around the corner, and it’s as good a place as any.>

<Forestation is ideal,> Elfangor said.

<Well Arby’s is closer,> Rachel argued.

<How are we going to get the guns home?> Tobias asked.  <They won’t exactly fit in our shirt.>

<You have lots of experience hiding things in your clothes?> Rachel asked.

<No,> Tobias said, in the least believable tone I’ve ever heard.

<Just find a trash back and stuff them in there,> Marco suggested.

<That works,> I said.

<Jeez, I was joking again,> he said.

<You should joke more often,> Rachel teased.  <You seem to be right when you do.>

<So we’re just going to walk all the way home with them?> I asked.  <It’s already pretty late.>

<I will take them,> Elfangor said.

I crashed through the lobby door to Arby’s.  The others followed me in.  <So you have a home now?> I asked.

<Yes,> he replied.

<Where is it?> Tobias asked.

<I don’t see why you need to know that,> Elfangor replied.

<I thought we were getting somewhere with you,> Marco said.

<Yeah,> Rachel added.  <We save your ass and this is the thanks we get?>

<You know where Cassie and I live,> I said.

<I’ll take that into consideration,> he said.

<You know what?> Rachel said.

<Leave it,> I said.  <I’m too tired to argue.  Let’s just go.>

A few minutes later, five owls flew to five human homes, and one human walked to an Andalite…whatever Andalites sleep in.  Den, I guess?  I’m sure the Controllers would find the Arby’s smashed in and connect it to the elephant or the ox, but we were all long gone before they arrived.

When Cassie and I got home, we didn’t even bother changing out of our morphing clothes.  We just flew into the bedroom, landed on the bed, de-morphed right there and crashed.  I don’t think we even said “good night” to each other.  As soon as we were both human again, we succumbed to sleep.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I encourage suggestions and feedback. That doesn’t mean I will follow all of them, but I would love to hear them none-the-less. In particular, I feel word choice is one of my weakest traits, so if you can find a better way to word something, I’m all ears. The more comments, the better, so I’d love to hear what you think!

 

It wasn’t even 7:00 when I woke up.  I was used to getting up a few hours before that, but I was also used to getting to bed a lot earlier than I had the night before.  I was also used to waking up to Cassie sleeping next to me, instead of Tobias standing over me.  _Wait, what?_

“Tobias, the fuck are you doing in my room?”

“I know where Elfangor lives,” he said.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” I groaned.  “And where’s Cass?”

“Making breakfast,” Tobias said.  “It’s ready, by the way.  I said I’d wake you up.”

“None of this is making sense,” I grumbled as I got up.   

I went into the kitchen.  Apparently Cassie had only gotten an hour of sleep before the nightmares got to her.  It only took me half a second to realize how stupid I’d been.  I’d had the nightmares before.  Back when I was first deployed as a Ranger.  I’d done some things that were pretty fucked up.  And the more fucked up the things I did, the nightmares would start all over again.

The first time I saw someone killed in battle, I never even got a shot off.  Someone else was always quicker on the trigger, and before I could get my rifle up to my shoulder, the threat was gone.  But I’d still seen someone die.  And that brought me nightmares for a couple weeks.  I had dreams that I was one of the enemy, and I saw my brother die.  I had dreams that it was one of our own that got shot.  I had dreams it was me in those windows.  But after a few weeks, the dreams slowly settled down.

Sleep was almost quiet for me again, but then I got my first confirmed kill.  An enemy soldier in the window of a mud brick house.  I must have put at least five rounds from my M4 into his chest, a few more into his arms and legs.  I had dreams of veterans from Vietnam going home and getting spit on.  I had dreams of going up to heaven, going to the pearly gates and having St. Peter tell me “sorry, it clearly says ‘thou shalt not murder.’”  Then I’d take an elevator or escalator down into a burning inferno, or I’d simply wait there.  I’m not even religious, so I don’t know why my mind sent me there.  But it did.

Once again, the nightmares were terrible for a week, and then slowly became background noise as my life went on.  But war went on, too, and in war you do terrible things.  The first time I saw one of my buddies die.  The first time I saw an IED go off.  The first time I saw someone ripped apart by the Barrett.  The first time I saw enemy tanks get ripped apart by the A-10s gigantic cannon.  The first time I took a bullet.  The first time I was captured and tortured by fanatics.  The first time I killed a kid.  Every time there was a new evil done to me, done by me, or that I witnessed on the field of battle, there was at least two weeks of nightmares that followed.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t second-guess the morality of anything I’ve done.  I’ve fucked up before, sure, but I don’t question that my heart wasn’t in the right place.  I always believed in the mission, 100%.  I believed every action I took, every order I was given, was for the good of the world.  Everything I did was either to bring down America’s enemies, to bring down tyrants overseas, or to save my brothers in arms as they did the same.

I knew that most of the people I killed were just grunts.  They were conscripted or even enslaved into an army they may or may not have cared for.  Many were probably serving out of fear.  I pity them.  I do wish they didn’t have to fight.  Especially the kids.  I’m talking the 10-year-olds that were forced to take an Uzi or some other pitiful weapon and stand against Army Rangers.  You can call me a baby-killer all you want, but it doesn’t matter how old the person on the other end of the trigger is, if they’ve got a gun they can kill.

I hate that I’ve had to do a lot of what I’ve done, but I don’t hate that I’ve done it.  If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t stop myself from doing any of it.  I may give myself tactical advice, ways to accomplish the mission with less casualties.  If I could, I may go back in time and prevent some of the dictators from taking power and putting their soldiers against us.  But even with the nightmares, I wouldn’t change anything I’d done.

I’ve had twelve years to reflect on this.  For me, dealing with the trauma of battle is like walking for a teenager.  I didn’t even have to think about my process.  I killed some people.  Maybe some of them – the Yeerks – needed killing, but the humans didn’t.  But I couldn’t get hung up on that.  The mission was to kill the Yeerk general, Visser Three.  We had failed that mission, yes.  But morally speaking, every kill was justified in that it was in the pursuit of the mission or to keep ourselves alive.  For me, it was that simple.

But for Cassie, it wasn’t.  Last night was Cassie’s first steps as a warrior, and she took a lot more steps in her first battle than I did in mine.  She hadn’t just been to battle and seen death.  She’d caused it.  And it wasn’t just with a gun that you pull a trigger and see the light leave someone’s eyes.  It was up close and personal, with teeth and claws.

As an animal, you don’t just see the consequences of your actions.  You don’t just see a body drop.  You experience the death you cause with every sense, human and otherwise.  You taste the blood pouring into your mouth.  You feel their heart stop.  You smell their last breath, and anything else that happens as the brain’s control over the body collapses.

When I walked into the kitchen, I didn’t need to ask Cassie what was wrong.  I just took one look at her and I could tell.  I’d never seen her like this before.  Shock, grief, and guilt all flashed back and forth.  There weren’t any tears in her eyes right now, but I could see the streaks that suggested she’d been crying a lot already. 

“The wolf liked it,” she said.  “I kind of did, too, but I don’t know if that was the wolf’s instincts or my own.  Does that make me evil?”

I knew that was ridiculous, but I also knew not to say that.  “No.  Sometimes evil things have to be done.  Animals have to kill to eat.  Everything in the wolf is driven off of that.  The games animals play are hunting games.  You’re the one who told me that.  The wolf was having fun, yes.  Any joy you felt, as in, if there was any joy from you, is pride and zeal.”

“So I’m a zealot?” Cassie asked.  She walked over to me in the doorway. 

I grabbed her in tight.  “No.  You know what you did had to be done, right?”

“I…I guess,” she said.

“You know you were doing the right thing.  And you did it well, that’s pride in your work.  I’ve been through this before.  You can do evil things for the right reasons, and it doesn’t make you evil.”

“Does it get easier?”

“Not exactly,” I said.  “You just process it faster.  It’s like math.  Ask a five year old what five times five is, and he won’t even know how to do it.  That’s where you are right now, that’s where I was my first time out.  Ask a seven year old, and it takes him time, but he knows how to get through it.  He’ll count it out, five…ten…fifteen…twenty…twenty-five!”  I was pointedly counting each one on my fingers.  “But after a while, he’s able to just answer right away, because he knows the process.”

“I don’t know which is worse,” she said.  “That I have to deal with this now, or that I’ll have to deal with it again.”

“Sorry,” I said.  “I shouldn’t have brought up the next time.  But just know, it gets easier.”

She calmed down a bit, at least on the surface.  I know there was more going on underneath, but I chose to stay away from it for now.  If she wanted to talk more I was open, but I know that festering on that sore when it’s first opened can be worse than the wound itself.

Tobias seemed to be dealing with things a lot easier.  He didn’t really explain why, but I suspect it had something to do with his uncle’s business.  It was just another day for him.

“Don’t you have school today?” I asked.

“Federal holiday,” he replied.

“Oh, right.”  I was surprised I knew what day of the week it was anymore.

We were half-way through breakfast when Marco showed up.  “Barb was in a car crash last night,” he said dryly.  “Check this out.”  He handed me his smartphone, which had a Twitter video spooled up, showing a ton of damage at the mall.  Apparently it was being blamed on someone driving their Kia Sorento into an Arby’s and then all through the mall.  I’m not sure how that made sense, especially with all the bullets and laser blasts, but then again I wasn’t sure exactly what the Yeerks were capable of.

“Why aren’t you with Barb?” I asked.

“She’s asleep,” he replied.  “We got the sitter over, and I just couldn’t stay there.”

“I still can’t believe what you did last night,” Cassie said.

“What?  When I guarded the door for you to re-morph?”

“No,” she said.  “I can’t believe you tried to kill your own wife.  In the frenzy I didn’t get a chance to ask what the hell you were doing, but now I can.  What the hell?”

“I wasn’t trying to kill her,” Marco said.

“Funny way of showing it,” Cassie scoffed.

“Honest,” Marco said.  “The jaguar knew what it was doing.  I just wanted to hurt her.”

“That’s still kind of messed up,” I said.  “That’s your wife.”

“Exactly,” Marco explained.  “There’s no way they’re going to think I’m one of the people there last night.”

“They think we’re Andalites anyway,” Tobias said.

“Yes, and I didn’t give them any reason to think otherwise,” Marco said.  “I don’t know if Visser Three knows much about humans, but all it takes is one Human-Controller to start thinking ‘why don’t they ever go after these hosts’ or something like that for them to suspect we’re not Andalites.”

“You’re playing the long con.”  Tobias seemed to admire him.

Marco smiled.  “Plus, with her face all slashed up, hopefully they find something for her other than sex work.”

“What if they determine she’s useless to them now and kill her?” Tobias asked.

“Oh, there’s plenty she can do, even if her Yeerk is an airhead,” I said.

“It must get that from her,” Marco said.  “I always did say she was a trophy wife.  That was in college.  I kinda stopped saying it when I dropped out to work at Blizzard.”

“Not as funny when it’s true?” Cassie asked.

“Basically,” Marco agreed.  “Well, I thought it was more funny, but Barb didn’t.”

“Good husband,” Cassie said.  She grinned and looked right at me.

“What?” I asked.

“He knows when to shut up,” she said.

“I just have a more tolerant wife,” I said.

“Anyway,” Marco said.  “I figured they’d either find something else for her to do or they’d kill her.”

We had been laughing.  We all stopped at once.

“What the shit Marco?” Cassie asked.

It took me a second to follow-up.  I was shocked she swore.  “Yeah, that’s kinda messed up, buddy.”

He shrugged.  “She wouldn’t be a Controller anymore.  That’s gotta be better, right?”  I don’t know how there weren’t tears in his eyes, because there were in mine.  If Cassie was a Controller, I’d probably kidnap her and hold her until her Yeerk died of starvation.  Then again, Cassie grew up on a farm and could live off the grid probably better than I could.  But still, I don’t think I’d have it in me to kill her, even if I compartmentalized my best.

“So, Tobias,” I said, desperate to change the subject.  “You told me you know where Elfangor lives?”

“Yeah,” he said.  “It was easy for the owl.  He seemed a bit uneasy as a human, always looking over his shoulder.”

“Carrying a trashbag and acting all scitzo?” Marco asked.  “People probably just think he’s homeless.”

“Especially dressed like that,” Cassie said.

“I don’t know,” I said.  “Clean clothes, clean shaven, and those aren’t the types of clothes a homeless person wears.  Probably just thought he was some college yuppie tweakin’ on something.”

“Anyway, he didn’t see me,” Tobias said.  “I know where he’s staying.”

“Should we go?” Cassie asked.

“Why don’t we get Rachel first?” Tobias asked.

“Of course _you_ want her there,” Marco said.

“What?” Tobias asked.

“I’ve seen how you look at her,” he said.  “She’s way too much woman for you.”

“She’s way too much woman for anyone,” I said.  “But she goes to the gym even on holidays.  I’m not going to bother her.  She…might get in the way anyway.  We want to be a little bit diplomatic.”

Cassie laughed.  “I don’t think Rachel even knows the word.”

“No Rachel then,” Tobias said, a bit dejectly.  Then, with a bit more pep, “so we flying out?”

“Couldn’t we just drive?” Marco asked. 

“I don’t think the van will get there,” Tobias said.  “We better fly.”

“Let’s go, then,” I said.  “Where is he?”

“I’ll show you,” Tobias said.

After breakfast, we all walked outside.  I don’t normally leave a hide-a-key, because that’s a good way for people to break in.  However, in this case, I felt it more prudent than leaving the doors unlocked on our way out.  “I really should get one of those fake sprinklers,” I said.

“Psh, I’ll just buy you a whole cipher lock system,” Marco said.

“Really?” I asked.

“I got the money,” Marco said.

“This is kind of our headquarters,” Tobias said.  “If he’s going to be our bankroller…”

“I ain’t gonna argue with you,” I said.  “If you want to give me cipher locks, I’ll take it.”

“We’re going to look weird if we all take off at once,” Cassie said.

“So we might as well morph and when you’re morphed, fly,” I said.

A few minutes later, Cassie took off as an osprey.  She was the quickest of any of us to morph.  Tobias had morphed red-tailed hawk more than any of us had probably morphed period, so he was about 20 seconds behind her.  I had more experience than Marco with the morphing, so I was maybe 15 second later as a peregrine falcon, and Marco wasn’t long behind me with the golden eagle.

Cassie and Tobias had circled up above and hung around.  This was my first time as a peregrine falcon, and I quickly found out why Tobias loved thermals so much.  The sun baked the ground, especially over dark, rocky areas like asphalt, sidewalks, and industrial roofing.  The warm air rising up from the sunbaked ground were like elevators for birds.

If you’ve ever seen a desert mirage, you’ve kind of seen a thermal.  Well, birds can see them on any normal day, and it was late enough in the morning there were plenty of thermals around.  At first, I had to jump and flap real hard to take off, just like any time I’d flown as a crow or as an owl.

But as soon as I left my yard and got over the road, I rode the thermals up hundreds of feet.  I barely had to flap at all.  I just glided up into the air, in a bit of a circle.  _So that’s why birds circle around overhead_ , I thought. 

Marco was just taking off when I zipped down to the next thermal.  Falcons don’t really glide.  We’re not distance or endurance fliers.  But with altitude on our side, when we tuck our wings, we can really pick up speed.

I dropped out of the thermal I was in and dove into the next one.  I rode it like a small hump in a roller coaster and into the next.  It was exhilarating!  I wished I had the adrenaline in my body to really enjoy it, but this was every day for the falcon.

I hadn’t tried this bird before.  I’d done the crow and the owl several times, but since getting the falcon, I hadn’t needed to fly during the day.  You’d think they’re all the same.  They’re all birds, after all.  But they are not the same.  I’d learn from the others that all the birds are different.  Marco’s eagle was built to soar.  Tobias’ hawk was built to fly.   Cassie’s osprey was built to swim, in addition to flying.

It’s like I was the F-22 high-speed interceptor, Marco was a B-52 bomber, and Tobias was an F-15 fighter.  Maybe Cassie was an F/A-18, since those are naval jets.

We stayed in thought-speak range and followed Tobias.  Cassie had told us that birds of prey don’t usually like flying close to another.  Hawks or eagles don’t fly in formation with their own kind, let alone with a hodge-podge of others.

So we flew a few blocks apart from each other.  Tobias led the way.  I followed a block or so to the right.  I actually kept passing him, but since birds can fly straight to where they want to go, it’s not like I had to follow him through twists and turns in the road.  Cassie was off to his other side, just barely in thought-speak range of me.  Marco lagged behind.

We could see each other clearly, but nobody below us would be aware that we were together.  But, as far as we were concerned, we might as well have been flying as close as the Blue Angels, because we were in perfect sync with each other.

<So where is it we’re going?> Marco asked.

<You’ll see,> Tobias said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay in getting these posted. I appreciate those that have enjoyed this so far. I have been writing when I have some spare time but haven't had a chance to post these. It's been a busy month.
> 
> I have one more chapter coming in this book, and then on to book 2.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're enjoying my work, please also check out the inspiration for my reboot: [Animorphs Reboot](https://archiveofourown.org/series/728631)
> 
> The Animorphs reboot by Artisan219 is a more direct reboot of the original, with a more mature audience in mind and slightly older characters. Artisan219 has been a big help and encouragement for me to get started. You should give his series a read, too!


End file.
